Christine in the Grass
by TwineLove
Summary: Alpha/Beta/Omega AU with BDSM and bondage overtones. An accident brings Leonard and Christine together. A romance story told from the male perspective about struggle, power, free will and what it really means to be a bastard. Also copious and gratuitous sex.
1. Chapter 1

Christine in the Grass

"If you want me again look for me under your boot soles." -Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass)

Chapter 1-

It was practically a medical fact around the Enterprise sickbay that she was his least favorite. The other nurses called it 'going to Chapel' when he called them into his office to berate them. She could have built a summer home on his shit list and everyone knew it was personal. She dropped things, gave too much or too little medication, was constantly referring to her PADD and asking annoying questions that she should know the answer to, but so did all the others in her year.

So what was it about her that he found so intolerably irritating? Maybe it was the fact that she was so clearly a Yankee. The small pendant brooch with a glossy anchor from some Yacht club, the turns of phrase she used, even the way she flicked her hair back from her face when it slipped out of her braid screamed East Coast new-money to his ears. Perhaps it was the way she hummed sometimes as she was going about her duties. Perhaps it was the way she giggled occasionally at an inappropriate time—rocking back and forth as she tried to restrain herself.

Whatever the reason for his dislike, Nurse Christine Chapel had stood at the end of Dr. Leonard McCoy's desk, head down to hid the pressed-together lips and the humiliated flush more times than he could remember. But he had never seen her look so utterly petrified as she did just then.

Her normally creamy pale skin was almost sheet white with fear and pain. The sensible, professional bun she wore to work was mussed and sloppy now and the fingers gripping the medical cabinet that pinned her to one wall were cut and bleeding.

"I think... I think something's gone clean through my calf," she said unnecessarily as he bent in front of her. He had the tricorder out already and could see quite clearly the wicked piece of metal that had pierced through her peroneous longus.

Though it must have been agony she'd made the right decision not to push the cabinet off herself. When he pulled it free he knew it was going to bleed profusely. She might have bled out looking for a tricorder or a bandage. Despite himself, he was impressed. He'd seen more than one person who should have known better pull something out of their own wound, some of them quite a bit more seasoned than she was.

"On three I am going to lift this off of you Nurse Chapel. Don't try to help me push. Just lie as still as you can and try not to let the leg move as much as possible. Do you understand?"

"Yes Doctor."

"One...Two...Three."

She gasped as the cabinet came free but she held still as he'd commanded. Blood rushed from a wound the length of his index finger like lava pouring from a crack in the earth. He bent down again and held the muscle together as he engaged the beam of the tricorder that would knit the flesh whole again. Once the wound was healed he went to the cabinet and got out some rubbing alcohol and cleaned the area around the wound of blood to make sure that the surface was fully intact and he hadn't missed anything. The pungent stuff ran pale pink into her shoe and sock, soaking them, but she didn't complain.

"You'll need to take an antibiotic and an antiviral to make sure it doesn't fester. Wash you hands with soap as well and get everything that might be in there out of those wounds too before you close them."

"Yes Doctor."

He stood and looked around the sickbay as she did as she was told. The normally obsessively clean space was a jumbled mess. The cabinets were locked tight but whatever had been out on the counters was strewn across the floor as were the contents of several medical carts that had been knocked over. With a sigh he went to his office and began to try to piece together in how big of a pickle he had really landed.

A few moments later the chime on his door sounded.

"What?" He snapped. She came in with a basin of water and a wary expression. "What is that for?"

"Your right arm Doctor."

He glanced down and for the first time noticed that he was bleeding sluggishly from his right forearm. He nodded. "Leave it. I'll attend to it in a moment."

Carefully she placed the basin, a bandage and two pills on his desk. "What happened Doctor?" She asked nervously.

His jaw clenched. "The ship split in two. Diplomatic mission my ass. That's probably when the cart was thrown into you. The medical bay and lord knows how much of this side got torn off."

On the whole though he knew they were damn lucky to have been where they were when the ship tore apart. There was an auxiliary power supply that fed the medical bay when the main power was shut off. Without it they would have lost life support immediately even if they hadn't been sucked out into space.

"Are.. are there any other survivors?"

His mouth tightened. "Your guess is as good as mine. When I left the bridge the Captain was working to beam most of the crew down to the surface and separate the saucer section. I don't know if he was successful."

She bit her lip. "Where are we now?"

He grimaced. "Floating mostly. I turned on the sensory system long enough to get our position and heading. Now I'm trying to figure out where in the name of all the angels that lands us."

"Have you turned on a homing beacon?"

He shook his head.

He could see by her expression that she knew the implication of that. The power supply to the medical bay was never meant to be used long-term and it wouldn't replenish itself. He hadn't turned on the beacon because he'd seen from the sensors that they were headed into some fairly uninhabited space and he didn't anticipate running into any ships anytime soon. With the Enterprise torn in two their only chance of survival was to come within short hailing distance of some planet or colony.

"Have you calculated our closest landing point?"

He shook his head. "I can't get the telemetry on this damn thing right. I will brief you when I know more."

It was such a clear dismissal he was surprised when a moment later he realized that he hadn't heard his door close again. He looked up. The damn girl was still in his doorway, biting that damn lip and looking nervous. "What?"

"It's just... I think I have some experience with that system sir. If you like, I could give it a try?"

He didn't bother to keep the incredulity from his voice. "You have experience with telemetry?"

"Yes sir. I've been sailing since I was a girl and small yachts use a similar navigation algorithm."

He almost sighed. Of course she'd been sailing yachts since she was a girl. "Oh by all means then Nurse Chapel, be my guest." He slid the PADD towards her and took up the washcloth she'd left for him in the basin.

As he washed and bandaged his forearm he watched her work. He she wasn't exactly sure what she was doing. But neither did she look entirely lost. She was working through a problem that she'd never solved before but she was doing it systematically.

He was impressed.

It was a not something a lot of people knew how to do in his experience. He would have expected her to be daunted in the face of something new but instead she looked only concentrated.

After a while she frowned and wordlessly slid the PADD back to him. He glanced down and to his surprise saw that she had indeed solved the problem. There on the display was their set trajectory if nothing intercepted them done to within a tolerance of a meter on either side. He was less pleased when he saw where it was. It would be eight and a half days before they were within short hailing distance of anything- a small moon that served as a junction stop between two small shipping lanes in this quadrant.

"Well I hope you like the taste of emergency rations Nurse Chapel."

Her brow furrowed. "Is the replicator not working Doctor?"

He shrugged. "Maybe but even if it is functional itself it's useless without the library, which is stored centrally in the main memory banks: a part of the ship we no longer can even see out of a viewing port."

"Even... even the medical library?"

"Yes that too, of course. Though I've told the engineers at least a thousand... are you alright Nurse Chapel?"

She'd gone suddenly very pale. "Yes, fine Doctor. It's just the stress."

He got up and came around the desk. She flinched back from him. "I only want to measure your pulse," he told her gruffly. He took her by the wrist and found that it was racing. But when he scanned her with the tricorder he found she wasn't bleeding internally. Her heart rate was elevated and her blood was racing but there was no physical cause for it that he could find. Perhaps she was right and it was only stress.

"You should get some more rest Nurse. It's almost two hours past standard midnight at any rate. We should get some sleep, though it isn't as though we'll have much to do tomorrow anyway."

"Yes Doctor."

She was a bigger idiot than he thought if she didn't think he could hear her crying. Christ he could practically smell her tears. The thought of it made him irritated. It made him want to yell at her to shut up, to grow a spine, to stop being so goddamn melodramatic. Instead he'd ground his teeth and tried to relax on the cot in his office.

Half an hour later when she was still sobbing and he was no closer to sleep he got the Romulan ale out of the drawer in his desk and poured himself a hefty glass. It didn't help though. He lay awake listening to the small, pathetic noise of her pain. Only when after two hours she quieted down and he could hear the soft, even sound of her breath in sleep was he able to fall into a restless sleep of his own.

AN: Please let me know what you think! This is my very first story I've ever shared so I'm very curious to know what you guys think (it's also my very first ever written in this AU so let me know how I'm doing on that too please!). Also I don't have anyone to Beta this so if you notice even a little grammar/spelling correction please drop me a line! xoxo -TwineLove


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2-

He woke with no idea how long he'd slept. The lights were brighter than he remembered which meant that the circadian rhythm of the ship's computer thought that it was officially "daytime" but he had no idea past then. It was the chime on his office door that had woke him.

"Come in."

The girl who came back into his office was an unexpected creature. Her eyes were slightly swollen from crying the night before but he'd never seen Nurse Chapel look so serene. She stood at the end of his desk as she always did, waiting for him to acknowledge her. But when he raised his head she met his gaze. She was back in uniform. She must have taken a sonic shower and brushed her hair. It was now carefully braided back into something that would have passed muster at a Star Fleet parade.

And she didn't wait for him to speak first. "Dr. McCoy I need to speak with you about something."

"What is is Nurse?"

"I... I am currently in need of a medication that I require but do not believe is currently on board."

He nodded. "What medication?"

She hesitated, pressing her lips together. "Estriphenolate."

For a moment he couldn't remember what that was used for. It had been so long since he had heard it. His brow drew together, surely she was making a mistake. "What medication?"

"Estri..."

"You're an Omega?" The words snapped out much harsher than he had intended and she straightened under them like she might a lash.

"...Yes, Doctor."

For a moment he fought the urge to gape at her. Was this a bad joke? A bad dream? But it seemed to real to be a dream and she didn't look in the least bit like she was kidding him around. His head was pounding from the ale and he thought he might be sick. He needed some time to think without her around, gawking at him like that. "Nurse you are excused."

She didn't run but it was a near thing.

When she was gone he grabbed the PADD and pulled up her file with shaking hands. The girl had to be mistaken. The little irritating slip of a thing was no Omega. He'd believe she was crazy before he'd believe that hokum. Had he left any whiskey stashed around the bay for her to find? She hadn't seemed drunk but she'd only been in for a moment.

Secondary genders had become so irrelevant they were marked on the second page of a medical history now. But there her's was: a neat little radio button like a sledgehammer between his eyes. Christine Chapel: Omega. He shoved the PADD back and for a moment considered going back for another round with the Romulan Whiskey in his drawer.

Instead he took a deep breath of the air in his office. There was the usual smell of a medical practice—antiseptic and neutral—and there was his own smell as well. But hers lingered quite strongly too. For a moment it smelled just as it always did: neutral and Beta, as bland and sterile as a hospital gown. He took another breath and focused in on that smell. His nostrils flared immediately and his teeth snapped together.

There, underneath that neutered stench was something he couldn't quite place. Masked as it was he didn't know quite what her scent was but it made him think of summer—long days and starry nights, fertile fields and well-watered crops in the sun.

"Fuck!"

It was something out of a badly written Omega porn novel: an Alpha and an Omega trapped together just as she goes into estrus. And she would go into estrus soon enough. She'd probably been on hormone suppressive therapy since she'd hit puberty. Most Omegas were in this century.

The Eugenics Wars had all but done away with the Omega population. The Augmented had none of the endemic respect for Omega life that human Alphas and Betas knew from their very DNA. The brutal climate of those fifty years where her gender had been traded and brutalized had not been one in which they had flourished. Perhaps fifty Omegas were born a year these days and most of them masked their nature like she did—with suppressors and shampoos that mimicked Beta scent markers. A handful were open about their nature but they were mostly exorbitantly priced courtesans or the spouses of the extraordinary wealthy.

That's what Omega had come to mean in this century: prostitute. In the movies they were always portrayed as sex-crazed seductresses, ready to be mounted by the most potent Alpha in their vicinity. They weren't so much as characters but archetypes: wanton sex embodied in the ultimate form. Even the Orion slave-girls couldn't compete.

And fuck Christine Chapel through heat if she wasn't about to prove the stereotype. Now that she no longer had access to her suppressors her hormones would come back with interest to repay. Omegas who had been on suppressors as long as she had didn't simply come back off of them without consequences. Withdrawal could be done safely over a period of months but Omegas who had cut cold turkey could die in their first heat if they couldn't find an Alpha.

She was sitting staring off into space when he stepped out of his office, her fingers trailing across her lips. He'd been at work for more than an hour but somehow he suspected that she had been waiting for him all that time. Really what was there to do in sick bay with no patients to care for or reports to write?

She stood immediately though, hands at her sides, waiting. Just before he'd come out he'd sprayed a numbing spray up both nostrils. It wasn't very powerful. Once her heat was on it would be about as much use as throwing a spoonful of water onto an inferno but for the moment it was enough. It was odd to look at her without her irritating smell, almost as if he was looking at a new person.

He wondered how he had ever not known what she was. If you'd asked him before today he would have said her most striking characteristic was her red hair but now he couldn't pick out just one. The soft line of her jaw, the smooth, slender legs and arms, the pert noes and plump lips now all seemed to scream out at him her nature. Suddenly he was glad for the spray for an entirely new reason.

_But I have known what she was,_ he realized with a start. _I've known what she was from the beginning, at least on some level, or I would never have despised her so much. _It may never have occurred to Leonard McCoy the man that she might be an Omega but somewhere, deep down, the Alpha had always known. The irritation he felt from looking at her had evaporated as soon as he'd removed her smell from the equation and he knew, with a flash of intuition, why that was. With her Beta shampoo over her natural scent she'd read to him like an Omega who had allowed a Beta to scent-mark her.

He'd heard of this happening before. It was rare for Alpha's to be able to smell anything underneath the Beta shampoo but it did happen and always with disastrous consequences. An Omega marked by a Beta was, for an Alpha, the worst kind of challenge. In the last year there had been a somewhat famous case of an Alpha girl in an expensive all-girls boarding school beating another girl brutally after school. Her lawyer had argued that it was because the other girl was a concealed Beta she'd been driven into a rage. Ten years ago there had been a famous Omega singer who alleged that his manager of twenty years had been abusive towards him because of his hidden second gender. He supposed a little extra shouting at her was fairly mild in comparison but he still, he felt like an utter bastard.

Though there was almost no point to it she'd cleaned up most of the bay and got the beds into working order. Perhaps out of habit, perhaps to please him.

He pointed to the nearest examination bed. "Come here and sit down please Christine." It was a command but said not without a certain accommodation (if not to say tenderness).

He saw from the subtle change in her expression she'd notice he'd called her by name. It was one of his known idiosyncrasies that he called his patients by name and not rank. A remnant of his days as a civilian doctor. She did as she was bid and he took a seat on the low stool where he always sat.

"When did you last take your Estriphenolate?"

"The morning of the attack."

That was between forty-eight and thirty-six hours from now. He did a quick calculation based on the metabolic half-life of the drug. "You should begin to notice its absence in twelve to twenty-four hours. Full heat could take as long as three days or as little as two. Have you ever missed a dose before?"

"Maybe once. Never twice consecutively. I'm very careful."

Did he detect a hint of defensiveness in her voice?

The cowardly part of him wanted to look away from her in this next part. No matter how much human pain he saw, humiliation never became easier to watch. But he didn't believe it was any healthier than shame and he wouldn't let himself flinch away. He met her eyes. "I suspect you already know this but I need to make sure you understand what will happen next if we are not rescued in the next two days."

She nodded, swallowed, and didn't look away.

He chose his words carefully. Delicacy and tact had never been exactly his strong-suits but even he knew some where called for when it came to proposing that he fuck his patients for their own health. "It is my medical opinion that at this time detoxification from Estriphenolate would be dangerous for your health. I am recommending that you be rutted through your heat. If you do not wish for this course of action to be taken I can program the lock on the door to my office so that it cannot be opened from either side for a period of five or six days and we can make as many preparations as are possible to ensure the highest probability of your survival. However if you choose the later course, you will be doing so against medical advice."

"What is the probability of my survival?"

"Robust statistics are not available but from the literature I would say between ten to fifteen percent chance of survival with some precautions."

For a long moment she stared over his shoulder. He could see the muscles in her neck straining as her jaw clenched. "If I choose to be locked up AMA, that goes in my medical history right?"

He frowned. "I will keep medical records of any choice you make Christine. You and I will certainly have to communicate with our superiors on the Enterprise and at Star Fleet Command after this."

She gave a short, humorless bark of a laugh. "Oh I don't doubt that there will be a lot of communicating."

What did she mean by that?

"You're worried this will hurt your chances of promotion in Star Fleet?"

She gave him an unexpectedly sharp look, as if she suspected he was making fun of her. But she must have seen the confusion in his face because she relented a moment later. "Yes, something like that."

_Your secondary gender is in your file and it's inconveniences, if that is what you choose to think of them as, are known. You can hardly be faulted for the confluence of circumstances_, he wanted to say. But it felt too patronizing. Instead he said, "if you choose to write your own report of this incident I can provide you with an envelope you can seal. I will sign the outside of the envelope and include it with my own version to send to Star Fleet. Additionally I would of course welcome you to read my report in its entirety at the conclusion. If you chose to sign it at the bottom you may, if not that is your choice as well."

For a long moment she stared at him, expression unfathomable. He found himself noticing, for the first time, how lovely her eyes truly were. How had he missed, in all the months they'd worked together, the dark, complex blue color of her eyes? Or the long, dark lashes and pale soft skin that surrounded them?

"What would you do if you were me?"

The question caught him by surprise. He considered for a long moment. "Are you asking me as Leonard or as Dr. McCoy?"

She hesitated. "You've already given me your medical opinion."

Had she balked at calling him Leonard? She'd phrased it carefully so as not to say his name.

"If I'm honest I have to say I don't know Christine." He said finally. "I think it would depend on how I felt about the person I was proposing to go through it with. I think there are some people in this universe mean enough and twisted enough that I wouldn't want to live through being at their mercy like that."

She swallowed. "Are you..." She trailed off, looking down.

"No, I am not."

"How do you know?"

He carded a hand through his hair and sighed. "Did you know I was married once before?"

She shook her head.

"I was, for about twelve years. And for about ten of those years she was off her suppressors."

Her head snapped up. "She was an Omega?"

He sighed. "Yes, yes she was."

"And she divorced you?"

"Well I don't like to split hairs but I think it's only fair to say that I divorced her."

Christine's mouth nearly fell open. Omegas who were open about it were extraordinarily rare and very much prized by Alphas. The relevant equation was something like a luxury car squared multiplied by all of your closest friends hottest girlfriends in terms of a status symbol.

"I can tell you want to ask why. Go ahead, it won't offend."

"Why?"

"She made me miserable. Utterly, desperately miserable. God I hated her in the end. I used to wake up thinking about how much I hated her...But it weren't ever a question that I'd ever deny her anything during her heats. I may be a mean, ornery old man but it takes a bigger bastard than me to do that."

She was quiet for a long moment. "What is it like?"

"Heat? Rut?" He thought for a moment. He didn't want to terrify her but neither did he want to leave her uniformed. A day ago he might have erred on the side of caution but for some reason he decided to tel her the truth. "It's brutal, animalistic. An Omega in his or her heat has to be handled roughly, needs to be really, and an Alpha in rut is more than happy to oblige. It's a display of power, one side submitting and the other dominating completely. There is no give or mercy in it, there' can't be. For all the civilization we've concocted on top of these impulses, the impulses have remained unchanged since the beginning."

She swallowed. "What if I can't submit?"

He shook his head. "The first time sometimes feels like a dream afterward. It won't be Christine Chapel who does what you do in heat, not any recognizable form of her. Your Omega nature will allow you to submit when you need to."

She was silent after that, head down.

"You can take some time to decide if you want. Sooner than six hours would be for the best. I would like you to decide before you start feeling the effects of withdrawal."

She shook her head, attempting a weak smile. "No, I've made my decision. I do not need to be locked in the office, thank you Dr. McCoy."

He swallowed. It was the decision he had suspected she would make, the one he thought most would make in her situation. But the surety with which she spoke took him aback. Masquerading as a Beta she had been timid and retiring. Revealed as what he was surprised to find her more forthright instead of less.

"In that case I would like to give you a more powerful contraceptive than you're currently taking and recommend a full blood panel for both of us."

She smiled. "If you put it in my file I'm sure the Nurse will get to it as soon as she is able."

He let out a short laugh. "I'll make sure you're the top priority today."

He went back to his office when the blood panels were done (both clean) and charted the encounter. He got out the envelope he had promised her and to his surprise found himself lingering by his bookshelf. He read over the titles, wondering which Christine might like. She didn't have anything really to do in the sick bay and he wanted her to feel comfortable.

_The provider instinct_, he thought. But knowing it's name didn't make it abate. It was an understatement to say it was normal for Alphas to bring gifts to Omegas they were interested in. It was almost an inescapable law of nature. Courting Alphas were ludicrous in the way they doted on their Omegas. Typically they brought lavish gifts—jewelry, cars, anything they could think of. Hell he'd bought his ex-wife their house when they were courting. But he wasn't sure he could claim to be truly courting her and he wasn't sure she would welcome it.

Finally, feeling guilty, he selected The Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman and brought it out to her along with the envelope. "I thought you might be bored."

"Thank you very much."

He went back into his office and fought back the urge to scream or pour himself some Romuland Whiskey. The Sword of Damocles settled over the sickbay as it hurtled through space.

AN: Please drop me a line and let me know what you think of the new chapter! I'd love to know what you think (and if there are any little nitpicks, lay those on me too!)!


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3-

Leonard woke the next morning already semi hard. In his dreams he'd found Christine in his quarters naked on his mattress. He'd climbed onto the bed and unceremoniously flipped her onto her stomach. Her pert little ass bruising under his fingers as he slid into her warm depths and rutted her hard. He'd just been on the edge of knotting her when he woke.

He groaned and scented the air. She was still hard to distinguish from that filthy Beta garbage she wore. He wanted to bite her throat for wearing it. He wanted to put a mark on her that would remind her and everyone else that she was his and no one else's.

Instead he focused in on her scent. She wasn't as far along as he was he realized with a start. Normally heat drove rut. An isolated Omega would go into heat every few months spontaneously whereas an Alpha who had never seen an Omega might never experience rut. Ideally of course both would move together simultaneously but there was always a lag between the hormones and usually an Omega arrived at their peak before the Alpha. But that fucking perfume was making him crazy. He should have known. Of course the smell of a Beta on her would accelerate his rut.

It felt like a challenge.

He got up from the mattress he'd put on the floor and went to the door of his office. She was on the office chair he'd moved out for her, reading Leaves of Grass and chewing on a protein bar. She stood up though when she saw him, as she always did. He struggled to keep his voice even as he spoke. "Christine I need you to go wash that scent off you right now."

"What?"

"That Beta soap you use. Go wash it off right now. Don't use the sonic shower. Use soap and water and scrub vigorously."

She nodded vigorously. "Okay, sure."

He went back and shut the door, and fought the urge to sink back against it with an audible groan. It was impossible not to think about going into the shower room with her and pushing her down to her knees on the tile. Under the spray he'd push into her warm, willing mouth while one hand tangled in her wet hair. He'd use her mouth roughly and then pull her up to kiss her sweetly and finger fuck her hard against the wall.

He managed not to do that but he was waiting for her when she returned, hair damp and unbraided but with her uniform on. He took her by the hand and pulled her toward him. He knew she could smell that his rut was on him and she trembled in his arms as one large hand rested against the smallest part of her waist.

He knew he should pull back, knew he shouldn't be doing this at all but instead he leaned in close to inhale the juncture where her slender neck met her shoulders. She smelled like honey, a cozy, lived-in bed, warm bread and good soil. He licked a long strip from her shoulder to the base of her ear, and damn if it wasn't the most gratifying thing he'd ever tasted. Better than the best bourbon in the world, and infinitely more intoxicating. Her hands went to his waist and she shuddered in his arms again but this time he didn't think she was thinking of pulling away.

He leaned back when he was done, keeping one hand on her waist to keep her still though. With the other he took her chin in his fingers and tilted her neck over to the other side. He angled her head into a presentation pose. Later he'd like to see her do this on her knees as well. It exposed the most vulnerable parts of the neck—the jugular, the scent glands and, most importantly, the junction where a Bond mark could be placed.

"Hold you neck just like that."

He licked another strip up this side of her neck and bit the earlobe lightly, making her gasp and hims stiffen. _You belong to me now_.

He'd replaced the Beta scent with his own. Now she smelled like her scent and his intertwined. Now any rival would know who she with and have to fight him if they wanted her. It was ridiculous of course. There were no rivals around. What he'd said was ridiculous too. She didn't belong to him and she never would. Still, it made him slightly calmer.

He stepped back from her and she blushed, casting her head down.

He felt immediately like a cad.

With some difficulty he managed to say, "it's never too late to change your mind about the office option."

She shook her head. "Do you need me now?"

"In these circumstances I would prefer for you to find me when you're ready."

He'd live to regret those words. The next six hours felt like the longest in his life. He tried to read, tried to work on medical back logs, tried to do almost anything. But in the end mostly what he did was pace.

When she did come she knocked once demurely and waited for him to call "come in." But when she pushed open the door she looked wild. Her pupils were already dilated and he could smell her slickness leaking down her leg.

He waited for her to come to him but she stayed instead at the door. "What is it Christine?"

Shyly she offered him her hand and he came to take it. She led him down to the opposite end of the bay where she had shoved two mattresses against one corner of the bay. Over the sterile, plastic foam she'd put hospital gowns and blankets to make a comfortable space for them to lie down.

_The Nesting Instinct_, he thought.

She glanced at him shyly for approval. "I don't..."

"I'm honored."

Strangely he felt as though he was standing suddenly in the eye of the hurricane looking at her. The pounding rush of hormones driving his rut receded momentarily as he considered the enormity of what he was about to do. Kissing one of his nurses. Fucking one of his nurses. Rutting a nurse that he'd been known to be on unfriendly terms with. He was going to have a lot of questions to an answer by the time he was done explaining this.

An yet, he couldn't turn away from her. The interplay in his relationship to her was too complex for him to fully fathom. His roles as her commanding officer, Doctor and even her prospective Alpha were overlapping and contradicting enough to make his head hurt. But as Leonard McCoy he found he didn't want to leave her as she stood: exquisitely beautiful and in desperate need.

As slowly as he could he lowered his lips to hers. He kissed her once tenderly and her mouth yielded so beautifully beneath his if he hadn't already been half hard it would have been enough. She moaned and he pushed her back against a cabinet, one hand cradling her head to shield her from the brutality of the blow. "No," she groaned, grinding her hips on his. "I need that."

He smiled against her mouth. "You'll get it soon enough."

With one hand he jerked up her skirt while with the other he tore down her top. The fabric ripped as he ripped it down over one breast and lowered his head to take her nipple into his mouth while simultaneously plunging into her with his fingers.

Fuck but she was tight. And already so wet and hot. She was like a furnace and dripping down over his hand. "Fuck honey you're so wet for me."

"Yes, just for you."

He fucked her with his fingers as hard as he liked. There was no danger she'd come this way. She wouldn't be satisfied until he was knot-deep in her. "God you're exquisite. I'm going to make you fucking incandescent."

Her fingers gripped his hair as he bit lightly down on her nipple, just hard enough to get her attention. "Please. It's not enough." Her hands were scrabbling at his shirt, trying to rip it like he'd ripped hers but she didn't have the right angle for that.

He stood back and with a single motion pulled off her dress. For a moment that felt like an eternity he tried to savor the sight of her in just a bra and panties. She was flushed with lust, pupils already blown wide, and panting slightly. Her lips were raw from where he'd kissed her and she smelled of honey and him. "Take off the bra. Do it slowly."

It wasn't a strip tease. She didn't do it with any finesse. She was too far passed the wiggle-and-shimmy part of herself. She was hungry. But she'd heard the order and she was willing to obey. Slowly she unhooked the bra and slid it down over her arms. He swallowed. "Now the panties. Slowly."

Again she bent and pulled them off without any attempt at sexiness. The matter-o-factness was somehow infinitely better though. She looked at him with her arms at her sides, naked and willing, waiting for another command and he thought his head would explode. Or maybe his cock.

He pulled off his own uniform, never taking his eyes off of her. "I am going to fuck you until you can't walk straight for a week."

Her mouth opened but all that came out with a slight little inhalation, almost a gasp.

"I am going to fuck you like those Beta boyfriends never could. I am going to knot you until you can't remember who you are."

She shuddered slightly and pressed her thighs together. "Please."

He pushed her down gently. Taking her first to her knees and then pushing her forward. She was young and inexperienced but her body moved easily into a perfect presentation position as if she'd been doing it all her life. "You were made to be fucked." He tried to take a moment to enjoy her as he positioned himself behind her but she was too needy. She pushed back on him, looking for satisfaction.

He made himself go slow, though it wasn't easy for either of them. She may have had sex before but clearly never with an Alpha and certainly not from this position. Her mew of pleasure and pain when he slid fully into her was enough to make him feel light-headed. The warmth of her was overwhelming. The tightness seemed to draw him in further somehow.

"Please, please, please..." She was chanting into the mattress.

"Say my fucking name."

He dug his fingers into her hips, hard enough to bruise.

"Leonard." She gasped.

"Again."

"Leonard." And this time as she said it he snapped his hips back and into her again. He didn't go easy on her and it drove the breath out of her. He needed to show her that she had taken a strong Alpha to her heat. He needed to show her his superiority, his brutality even. But her body was made for this kind of use.

"Again."

"Leonard." Again he snapped his hips brutally.

"Leonard... Leonard... Leonard..." She chanted to the rhythm of his thrusts. At first it was her voice that drove his thrusts, him waiting on her to set the pace. But soon it was the other way around. She was panting to keep up against his pace of his hips pounding into her. He was beginning to feel his knot forming.

"You're so good for your Alpha. So wet and tight for me."

"Please Leonard it isn't... please, I'm yours please."

"You're mine!" It was a snarl.

"I need you. I need everything. Just, Leonard, please..."

He bent over her to get a deeper angle and still it wasn't enough. He needed to be always a part of her, to mark her, to claim her. He needed to be the only man to ever see her like this or do this to her. He looked down at the wide stretch of her back, admiring the small waist, the flare of her hips and the slender back and neck.

It seemed to him almost in slow motion that he watched her tilt her head, pushing her forehead and inclining herself in just exactly the way he'd shown him so that junction of her heck and shoulders was fully revealed to him. She was presenting to him. His already frantic heartbeat raced out of control.

It had never occurred to him that she might offer to Bond while they mated. He'd never thought it was a possibility. But while everything in his head screamed not to do it—shouted at the top of it's lungs about chain of command, abuse of power, that she was his subordinate and he was her commanding officer—everything in his being screamed to go through with it.

He knew with an utter certainty that she would let him. It was his right too. By turning her head she had offered and he could accept if he wanted to. And God did he want to. Even with his first wife the urge to bond had never been this strong.

When an Alpha bit an Omega in heat it Marked the Omega and established the two as pair Bonded. The Omega would never again be able to accept another Alpha in their heat. In centuries passed it had been nearly a form of slavery. Bonded Omegas were considered the property of the Alpha who had Marked them. They couldn't stray or have an affair and neither could they travel away from their Alpha for more than the time between two heats. For this reason virgin Omegas had been highly prized in history. They'd been bought and sold like cattle in some of the more cutthroat Greek city-states. In feudal Europe deals between neighboring Lords often involved the exchange of Omegas from each household.

Even now some of the old prejudices remained. If he Bonded her it was unlikely that Star Fleet would reprimand him. If she had offered herself to be Marked it was still seen as his right to accept it. Though it wasn't written down anywhere most people took the attitude of 'Who could blame him after all?' when it came to Alphas. Rut was seen as a nearly unstoppable force.

It would be a scummy thing to do though, even if he was technically allowed. Bonding to a girl this young, at his age, in her first heat? He would have looked down on any other man who did it, if the girl was willing or not.

He ran his tongue over her honeyed flesh. He was right on the edge. They were both right on the edge. All he had to do was sink his teeth into her and they would both come immediately. A tidal wave of pleasure that they wouldn't match until the next time he tore open her Bond wound to remind her of her place would flood them both, obliterating everything for a few moments. It would be pleasure unlike he had ever known and likely ever would. His teeth skimmed over her and the sound she made was unbelievable. The little mewling whimper of a sound went straight to his cock unlike anything ever had before. He wondered what she would sound like when he bit her truly.

Would she sputter and choke from the shock of it? Cry out in exquisite agony? Would her back arch against the force of his superior body crushing her down into the mattress, trying to push her tiny form as hard as she could against his own? Would her eyes fly open wide to let him see the moment when she became his truly? He wanted to know. He wanted to see her.

Pulling back from it though was the hardest thing he'd ever done. His arms shook as he leaned back, gripping her hips with fingers trembling. God if he hadn't been close to taking her. Later he would look back on that moment with horror—how close he had come to claiming her, this child, this subordinate—but just then he had to bit his own lips until he drew blood to keep from leaning back down. She moaned her disappointment and he had to gave her a particularly hard stroke to settle her. "Hush now honey. Do as you're told. Just focus on my knot."

His knot—the thick ring of flesh around the base of his cock that would tie them together after coupling—was beginning to swell. It was becoming harder to get in a full stroke. She was groaning and beginning to struggle as he fucked her. "Leonard it's too big...please... it's too big."

"You can take it. You will take it." He pulled back and pressed it against her, letting her feel the full size of it. "You are going to take all of that."

She moaned. "It's too..."

He gripped her hair. "Hush now."

He pushed it in cruelly slowly, taking his time as she moaned in a mixture of agony and ecstasy. She needed this though. The disappointment she'd felt when he'd refused her the bite needed to be re-payed. He owed her this.

At the widest part of his knot he stopped for a moment. He knew it must hurt, she was moaning in pleasure and pain but he wanted her to feel it. "You're so good for me. You take it all for me. You'd take anything I gave you wouldn't you?"

"Yes. Yes."

"Tell me you'd take anything for me."

She was gasping, almost incoherent. "Please... oh, anything... just please... just..."

"Say my name."

"Leonard! Leonard!"

He pushed into her with a roar and felt her insides contract as her orgasm hit. She was chanting his name and it turned into an torrent of sounds in his ears. Her hands fisted in the bed covers and she tried to pull herself up but he pushed her back down, folding himself over her and pushing her down until she was beneath him. He clasped her hands in his and pushed her forward until she was pinned underneath him, helpless and trapped.

His own orgasm hit soon after. Her contracting insides milking a hot torrent from him. He exploded with a roar, collapsing on top of her. He'd never felt anything so good as pumping her full of his seed. It was a razor sharp pleasure enveloped in a consuming satisfaction. In the damp warmth of her he felt he might loose track of himself. Where his body ended and hers began seemed suddenly far less distinct than he'd previously imagined and he wanted to sink down into the warm abyss of pleasure that she was beneath him.

For a while they lay like that, him on top and her beneath. He reached beneath her and stimulated her clit until they both had a second orgasm, softer and less intense though still enough to make her moan delightfully. He considered making her give him another but decided it was too much. Already she was limp and boneless in his arms

He rolled her onto her side and pressed her legs between his thighs. One hand he trapped over her breasts, rolling one nipple in his fingers absentmindedly. "What happens now?" She asked as they lay together, unable to separate.

He could tell by the tone of her voice that she had gone back, for a moment, to thinking of him as Doctor McCoy. Her heat (and consequently his rut) was satisfied for the time being and she was struggling to regain her normal sense of reality—one in which her boss didn't bend her over and fuck her brains out.

He supposed in a certain way it was a sensible reaction but he couldn't bring himself to struggle along with her. She felt too nice in his arms and around his cock for him to think of her as Nurse Chapel. There would be time enough for that later.. "You can go to sleep or we can talk. While I'm still lodged inside of you I think I'm pretty much on your time honey. Are you comfortable?"

"Very." He knew she was telling the truth too. This close could feel her heartbeat and the rush of her blood. Besides, she was utterly limp.

"So, what'll it be."

"Will you tell me a story?"

"Of course I will Christine."

He told her about growing up in Mississippi. About his horse and the rattlesnake he'd killed one summer with a slingshot. He told her the names of his dogs, his sisters and his cousins (in that order). By the time he got around to telling her about the swimming hole she was asleep and he was only half hard. He could have slid out of her if he'd wanted to but he found instead that he only pulled her tighter against his chess and rolled her slightly under him before going to sleep himself.

They fucked four more times that night. Twenty two more times over the course of the next four. He made her kneel for him and present her neck. He fucked her face in the shower like he'd fantasized about and it was better than he'd imagined. He pushed her legs up until her knees where in her chest and ate her out until she was sobbing and begging for him to knot her.

He did knot her every time too. He didn't tell her how rare that was, to go through a full heat and knot every time. Most Alphas couldn't do it, most Omegas couldn't handle it. He didn't know how she could walk with how roughly he used her, much less how she could wake panting for it in the night again and again.

She was insatiable. Even for an Omega it was impressive.

But on the fifth day he woke with her in his arms but he could smell that the heat and rut were over. For a guilty moment he just lay there, enjoying the feel of her in his arms. He knew he should get up and leave her with her modesty but he almost wanted to kiss her sleepy lips, tweak her nipple and see if she wanted a nice, slow, gentle fuck before breakfast. He felt like she would, if she had really been his. Instead he contented himself with placing a small kiss on her forehead and slipping out before she woke. He tweaked the covers up over her and went to shower the smell off of him in the sonic shower.

He got her breakfast from the stock of rations and left it on her bedside while he retired to his office. He heard her get up some while later, shower and eat.

AN: Oh man, why are all the windows so foggy all of the sudden? Anyway please leave me a note and let me know what you thought/loved/hated/wanted to know more about! I want to hear what you think of the writing, the story, the characters, my portrayal of the characters, the interaction, the Alpha/Beta/Omega universe I'm setting up, my grammar, the smut... anything! Please drop me a line!


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4-

Leonard fought the urge to put his hand over hers as the rocket rumbled and screamed, the engines warming up beneath them like an angry hive of bees. He was glad to be on a rocket and finally off medical bay, reeking as it did of her and their coupling. He was glad too to be headed back towards civilization, rules and regulations, and almost anywhere he could get away from the maddening smell of her.

He clenched his hand against the urge to gentle her, instead touching the PADD he had tucked into his jacket pocket. Handing over the official report to Star Fleet felt like a sane, sensible thing to do and he could use a little sanity these days. He could feel her agitation growing in the seat next to him like a hive of insects beginning to spill over.

He doubted that she feared flying herself. These young things never seemed to mind rattling off in whatever half-cobbled together rusty bucket of bolts anyone thought might be spaceworthy. But this close to her heat she could undoubtedly sense his fear and it was making her even more uncomfortable than him. He felt guilty. It was his fear that they were ping-ponging back and forth after all. But the guilt only made him more irritated with her, and with himself.

A single hand on her arm, or better still the back of her neck, and she would settle down immediately. She would remember that he was right there beside her. The smell of her fear and agitation was making him want to take something apart with his bare hands.

Sometimes he couldn't really believe it had happened. He'd written it all down plain as day in his report but when he read it over again it felt almost as if someone else had done those things, and written those words. She was a strange creature too these days. She was like one of those illusion that could be either a rabbit or a duck depending on how the eyes focused on it. Sometimes when he looked at her he saw Nurse Chapel, annoying, chittering little twit of a green-as-grass nurse. Sometimes his saw Christine, the Omega who had taken his knot so beautifully.

He'd been careful not to change his behavior towards her one iota. He still snapped at her when he was irritated, berated her when he felt she was slacking and ignored her completely when he didn't find her of use.

But it didn't change the fact that she knew how he fucked.

She'd seen him in passion, at his least guarded. She knew how he liked to get his dick sucked, that he had a predilection for keeping her split wide on his knot before he pushed it fully into her and that he couldn't keep his mouth civil in front of a naked woman. He was no Southern gentleman when he took his clothes off and she had the bruises to prove it. Whatever was false in the persona he presented to the world—Leonard McCoy respectable, measured, fair and meticulous (if perhaps cantankerous) doctor—she had seen through by now. And she knew without a shadow of a doubt that he had wanted to Bond her.

She was his nurse and she'd seen him in the moment when he'd almost Bonded her.

_Jesus McCoy, where the fuck had that come from_?

It was a rare thing for an Omega to offer themselves in Bond. As with everything to do with secondary gender the bargain struck was hardly fair in the twenty-third century definition of the world. A Bonded Alpha might mate with other Omegas, even Bond and breed them if he liked, but a Bonded Omega would never allow themselves to be mounted by another Alpha once they had the Mark on them. In the days before suppressors Bonded Omegas often died if their Alphas were killed or taken from them.

Consequently they were understandably hesitant to offer themselves up. In the Middle Ages Noble women had been required to bond but most of the peasant Omegas chose not to. It was rarer still in the modern world, almost unheard of in truth. Even Helen had never offered him that, after ten years of being his wife and Omega.

It was such a complete act of submission.

A century ago it was held as the truth that Alphas were not capable of resisting the offer of a Bond and even now it hung around as one of those half-believed old wives tales. Something to scare and titillate virgin Betas and Omegas with. Bonding was everything an Alpha brain wanted, ultimate fantasy fulfillment to their beastly nature: an Omega who they had complete control over.

It wasn't necessarily that she wanted to be Bonded to him, even if she had offered, he reminded himself. If being an Omega carried a stigma, being a Bonded one carried at least ten times as much as that. It was not something likely to be beneficial to the career of a green nurse hoping to make a life for herself in Star Fleet.

No he wasn't kidding himself. She had offered in the madness of heat. He was a particularly potent Alpha and she was a young and inexperienced Omega in her first true Heat.

It wasn't arrogance in particular for him to assume that his virility as an Alpha had contributed to her willingness to offer a Bond. Where he came from everyone knew the McCoy family and everyone knew that there wasn't a Beta among them in living memory. It wasn't exactly uncommon in old Southern families either: just as it wasn't uncommon in the lineages of the nobility in feudal Europe, the Mongol raiders in Asia or any other indigenous culture large enough to have a ruling class. Alphas wanted the submission only an Omega could offer. Omegas wanted the protection of an Alpha. Those with enough power to get what they wanted tended to exclude Betas and consequently bore none as children as their DNA became increasingly polarized.

He had never been made to feel like he had to marry an Omega of course. He'd dated Beta girls in high school and college and his parents had never mentioned their secondary genders. But then one summer during medical school he'd come home and met Helen at a debutant ball. She'd been introduced to him by her father and they'd been married before he'd gone back to school in the fall.

She'd been a beauty queen, Miss Mississippi for two years in a row, and he'd been too star-struck to see anything else. He'd never though much about what, exactly, about him had made Helen so equally immune to sense though until it was all over. Maybe it was his last name, the family he came from or the fact that he was a doctor. But he didn't doubt that genetics had helped too. At her request he'd gotten some genetic testing done and even he had been surprised at the frequency of his Alpha genes. It was one of the highest he'd ever seen.

And even though Christine had never known any of that, somewhere in the basic, animal part of her brain she could _smell_ it on him. The Omega part of her could smell that this was a man who could and would rip out the throats of anyone who threatened her or her children. When he had pushed her down onto the mattress she had tilted her hips up into presentation. When he had pushed her to her knees, she had tilted her head to the side to show her neck. Allowing him the chance to Bond her had probably felt as natural as breathing to her, with no thought spared for the consequences.

He shifted in the seat, suddenly uncomfortable for an entirely new reason. He still couldn't think of her on her hands and knees before him, offering a Bond, without getting half-hard. Still, he was glad he had been able to resist. A sweet young thing like her deserved better than to be Bonded to him. He was nearly fifteen years older than her, divorced, cynical and far too big of a bastard to ever make her happy.

A Bond was not something that was lightly gotten out of either. Even in this age of science it was still regarded (even tacitly by medical texts) as semi-mystical. The biology of it—hormones, mirror neurons, brain chemistry and the like—had all been explained but the manifestation of those things still inspired reverence and awe in most humans. With suppressants and time an Omega might be able to live apart from an Alpha eventually but the surge of hormones it would produce in both of them after the first bond would talk almost four months to die down, and that was if the Alpha could resist re-Marking the Omega (something that had been documented in literature only a handful of times). In those four months it would be impossible to separate and Alpha and Omega for more than a few days at the most. Separation of Bonded pairs had been known to drive both frantic, violent, even to self-harm if it wasn't relieved.

_It didn't happen though McCoy. Bastard that you are you didn't sink that low._

Ignoring the small part of himself that still felt dissatisfaction with that he leaned back in his seat and tried to relax. It was going to be a long trip home.

There had been surprisingly little fallout from the two weeks they'd spent fucking in a life raft falling through space. Jim had managed to salvage most of the rest of the Enterprise and by the time they'd made the rendez vous coordinates at the space station where it was being repaired, it was almost fully operational. The reports they'd written had been turned into Star Fleet Command and included in their permanent records. They'd both been sent for psychological exams and full physicals. But neither of them had been reprimanded. The whole thing seemed to have been filed under the official heading of _Unfortunate Incident, Not To Be Repeated_ and forgotten about as far as Bones could tell.

He had insisted that the exams take place on a base, far from Enterprise personnel and that the medical records be sealed in their files in such a way that only someone with Priority One clearance who was specifically looking for it would ever find out that the addendum actually existed. In his experience the snoopiness of nurses was matched only by their ability to assume the worst. A sealed medical file pertaining to those two weeks would almost certainly be noticed eventually and once it had been there would be no end to the speculation on what it contained.

He'd left only one thing out of the report to his shame. He had not included any of the details of their coupling nor the relevant information that she had offered him a Bond. He'd considered it for a long while before leaving it out. He didn't feel that anything else she had done might be viewed badly by future potential commanding officers except for that. It bothered him quite a bit that it could be construed as manipulating the story for his own gain. As an experienced Alpha he should have been able to contain her better. The ultimate blame of course lay with him, any fool could see that, but he didn't think somehow that it would be seen that way. Omegas were traditionally the gatekeepers of Bonding. Explaining that she was inexperienced and overwhelmed though he felt might make her seem weak and naive to a potential commander.

So against his better judgment (and the Alpha part of him that wanted to scream from the roof tops that she had offered herself to him) he had left it out. And when she had read his report without comment he assumed he had made the right choice. It was part of his unofficial duty as her commander, he reminded himself time and again, to lie on her forms for her own good. If he'd reported everything that the idiots in his charge did honestly not a single one of them (from the Captain right on down to the meanest ensign) would ever have been allowed to leave Earth, much less maintain their post on the Enterprise. Still, it made him feel sleazy and dishonest and Bones hated that feeling.

Part of him had assumed Christine would transfer off the Enterprise when the dust had settled, a prospect he both dreaded an longed for. Having her back in his sick bay was distracting. She was back to wearing that disgusting Beta soap again which infuriated him all the more these days. Sometimes during staff meetings he would fantasize about taking her by the scuff of the neck into the showers and scrubbing the filth off of her and mounting her once or twice to teach her a lesson before he deigned to give her back his own scent marks. But no matter how much of an irritation she proved to be he found he couldn't bear the thought of her leaving either. Obviously he would never go so far as to block her transfer but the thought of her so far away made him feel wild.

What if she found another Alpha? What if she let someone else split her thighs? What if she took some other man's knot and seed?

He took to sparing with Jim again to let of some aggression. When even that wasn't enough he'd take a turn letting the Vulcan beat the shit out of him in the ring for an hour or two. These days there wasn't much of his torso that wasn't mottled with some stage of bruising.

It was all rubbish of course. He couldn't believe how insane he was being.

He'd known of course there would be some time that was needed for them to regain their distance. She was an Omega and he had had her. It would be a while before the urge to reassert his claim diminished. But he had been unprepared for how strong and steady it was. Even then, a month later he still dreamed of her most nights.

He took to using the numbing nasal spray to mask her scent after that staff meeting where he'd missed quite a bit of information and had had to play catchup the whole day for it. It helped some, but not enough. Getting drunk helped too, as did masturbation and cold showers. But none of it was enough.

Oddly enough it was the bourbon that brought them together again. He'd gone down to the ships bar for a drink and to read his book in the quietest corner. He smelled her when she came in. He hadn't used the nose spray and the awareness of her after so long shot through him straight to his cock like a bolt of lightening. The synthetic Beta smell was as revolting as ever but he could still smell her beneath it, like honey on the comb and summer rain.

He looked up and found she was looking back at him. She was with a group of her friends—some other nurses that he knew but also with a mix of ensigns that he didn't. She wasn't in her uniform but rather a dark purple dress that set off her eyes. It was modestly cut, almost to her knees and without much of her bosom bared but the sight of her in it made him salivate. Her blond hair was down in a loose mass of gentle curls and she wore only a small silver locket.

He nodded once to show he'd noticed her and she nodded back. With his foot, he pushed out the other chair so it was available to her and looked at it pointedly. She bit her lip but nodded once more after only a moments pause.

She said something to the girl next to her, an ensign he didn't know, before breaking off from the group to come over.

He stood and pulled her chair out for her, pushing it in as she arrived. "Good evening Christine."

"Good evening."

She didn't say Leonard though. Underneath the Beta scent he could smell that she was nervous. He couldn't help but like the smell of it. She was thinking about him fucking her, how powerfully he had rutted her and it made her as skittish as a new filly. God if he didn't want to break her in a little more.

"What's your poison tonight?"

"I'd like a beer please." He raised an eyebrow at that. "What is that for? You look like commander Spock when you do that."

"I've never looked like that green-blooded hobgoblin in my life. You just never struck me as the kind of girl who liked beer is all."

"Oh? Why is that?"

The truth of course would never do. _You cunt tastes like honey and you have a posh New England accent. All the girls I ever knew like that drank the coldest and most expensive white wine they could find._ Instead he said, "you just seem a little too delicate for that."

"Delicate?" Now it was her turn to raise an eyebrow. Was she thinking about how roughly he had taken her? He certainly was.

"My mistake then... Maybe I'll have you swilling whiskey by the end of the night if you're starting out with those tastes."

"I don't think so. But you're welcome to try."

He signaled down an ensign who was serving and ordered a beer for her and another bourbon for him.

"I finished Leaves of Grass." She said when the ensign had left.

"Oh? What did you think?"

"I can't believe I'd never read it before. It was beautiful."

'_Do anything, but let it produce joy'_, he thought, _of course you liked it honey_.

"I'm sorry I haven't given it back. I only finished it last night. I should have asked if you wanted it back. I'll bring it to sick bay in the morning."

"If you like it, it belongs to you."

A small frown bent pink lips. "I couldn't possibly. It's a first edition, it must be very expensive."

The Alpha part of him wanted to snarl at her for daring to refuse his gift. Instead he said simply, "it would make me very happy if it belonged to you from now on."

"I can't ac..."

"You can and you will."

He didn't speak loudly but there was a little note of steel and power in his voice that he neither anticipated nor welcome. But she didn't argue with him after that.

Their drinks came—a bitter, dark beer for her—and a warm, smooth bourbon for him. Without thinking he dipped a thumb into the bourbon and with the other hand gripped her chin. To his surprise she slid as easily as she had before into a position of presentation. He fought not to let his mouth fall open. He doubted that she understood the significance of falling so easily into presentation at his touch. If they had been courting it would have been an open sign that she would accept him again during her next heat.

He tried not to think about that. Instead he slid his thumb, covered as it was in alcohol down the length of her neck just as he had once run his tongue over her, masking the disgusting faux-Beta scent she used in the potent smell of the liquor. Quickly he pushed her chin to the other side, dipped his thumb into his drink again and repeated the movement.

Neither of them spoke for a long moment when he finally let go of her chin. He breathed in deeply for the first time since she'd sat down, relief flooding through him almost palpably. He knew she couldn't fail to see the way the bunched muscles in his shoulders and back uncoiled at the smell of her, the way his fingers relaxed on his thighs and even the hair on his arms stopped standing up. But she didn't comment. She couldn't meet his eyes and she was blushing furiously.

He knew he should feel guilty, later he would, but for the moment he simply enjoyed the new smell of her. Finally he said, "I don't really think I know the first thing about you Christine. Where are you from?"

"Massachusetts mostly. I went to boarding school in Connecticut when I was about ten though." That explained the East Coast mannerisms then.

"You must what, golf then? Hunt perhaps? Ride horses?"

"Everyone does some of that stuff I suppose. I really prefer to sail though."

"Oh? Are you any good at it?"

"I won the Junior Singles Female's Yachting Regatta for the Keys when I was seventeen but it isn't as impressive as it sounds. I got lucky and won against some much better sailors than me." Her laugh was puckish: a combination of laughing at herself and the world that had let her get away with something.

"Oh? Why do you say that?"

"A squall blew in. A lot of good sailors don't like to sail under those conditions but I always do well on a rough sea."

"I bet you do. Where did you go for university and nursing school?"

"Paris for University and then Dar Es Salaam for nursing."

He didn't bother to ask where in Dar she'd gone for nursing school. The University of Dar was one of the best on Earth and well known for it's nursing school in particular. She must have been quite bright to have gotten in. He made a mental note to look up her ranking. He'd bet anything it was quite high.

He had been noticing how smart she was since they'd returned. It had been there all along he felt, hiding in plain sight just like her Omega nature, if only he'd been sharp enough to recognize it. She wasn't exactly the most sensible nurse, nor the best with patients and like anyone else she dropped a tray from time to time. He'd shout at anyone for these kinds of failings because damn it if he ever admitted to himself or anyone else that his staff were ever allowed to be human beings instead of paragons of medical wisdom and professionalism in the sick bay. But in her case, could he truly say he'd been fair?

He'd dragged every member of his staff into his office at least one. Sometimes it felt like he'd dragged every member of the crew in their for a lecture too. But with her it had been excessive. Every small lapse, every tiny mistake had been magnified, examined and thrown at her.

She'd taken it too with a strange kind of stoicism. She must have known what it was about her that bothered him so much but she'd never mentioned it, never brought up her unfair treatment to him or his superiors. God he should have been mentoring her instead of trying to crush her out of nursing. She was too young to be the best nurse on his service by a light year but she was the kind of book-smart, whip-smart young woman that could grow into a formidable force of a nurse. The kind he'd be proud to have trained for years to come. Why had he only seen that now?

_You stupid fucking Alpha_, he berated himself. _Can't even look far enough past your own cock to see what's right in front of you. God by every right this little sweet should hate me with all the strength in her body. _

But all he said was, "that's very impressive Christine."

"I've been given a lot of opportunities in my life."

"How about your family? Are your parents still alive? Any brothers or sisters?"

"Everyone still lives in the Keys. My brothers didn't move far when they left home. Tim moved a little North, Eric and Charles moved a little south. Nathan went the farthest and he went West. Everyone used to joke that I'd have to move to the West and live on a ship in the middle of the ocean. They were half right at least I guess."

She took off the necklace and put it on the table, flipping it open to reveal it was a little hologram projector. The image it displayed was of a family crowed around a couch, two spry looking sixty-year-old in the center and four strapping, handsome men standing behind it. They were holding Christine, who looked about seventeen, as she sprawled in a faux-lounge singer sort of way across their arms, one hand cocked on her hip and the other out in a ridiculous, exaggerated pose. "Oh Gods I'd forgotten how embarrassing this picture is. Never mind the silly pose. We'd all gotten into the eggnog early that morning. Those are my parents and left to right it's Eric, Nathan, Charles and Tim."

"You look like you're having fun."

Suddenly she seemed to realize how strange it was to have shown him that picture. She closed the locket and swept it around her neck again with an elegant gesture, blushing slightly and not meeting his eyes.

The girl in the photo—gay and carefree, drunk in the morning in the paternal living room—was one that he had never seen before. Perhaps he could have guessed that she was a joyful girl, silly and giggling when she was relaxed. But she wasn't every relaxed when she was around him. In every way he was a predator to her. If she showed him that insouciant underbelly he could rip it out.

She bit her lip. "I don't know why I..."

He took his wallet out of his trouser pockets and flipped it open. He put two holograms on the table. They weren't as high resolution as the one she had in her necklace, having been taken before the latest round of upgrades had been made to the technology. In one five children perched on top of a fencepost in a row in their Sunday finest. The starch in his shirt was starting to melt in the heat but he was grinning, gap-toothed into the camera and inexpertly holding a baby just under the arms so it drooped down into a frowning expression of resignation. "Izzie wasn't born yet when this picture was taken but that's Margret, Carol and I'm holding Victoria. You can't tell from the photo but Vicky and I grew up to be quite good friends"

She leaned forward across the table to look closer at the hologram and he fought the urge to scent her. She smiled up at him and for the first time he could see the little carefree grin of that seventeen-year-old in the photo. "I presume she's never seen this photo in that case?"

"I remember ma hollering at me to hold her better. I thought she was just running her mouth though."

In the next photo he was just out of medical school, about her age actually, standing behind Vicky at what looked like her high school graduation. He was holding a beer in one hand and giving Vicky rabbit ears with the other. His mother to one side had her hand over her face in dismay, waving off the camera with the other. He smiled again. "And here I am showing Vicky how proud I am of her education."

She laughed outright at that. "She at least looks a little happier in this one."

"Vickys a good girl. She got married last summer. I went back to walk her down the isle."

"What's her husband like?"

"I don't know him all that well. It don't matter much though. I know I'm supposed to get all brotherly and superior like I'm going to protect her and put the fear of God into all her boyfriends or whatever." He took a sip of bourbon. "But honestly if he's married to Vicky, he can't fear God overmuch by now and he ain't going to be frightened by anything I have to say."

She laughed. "That's a surprise. I would have pegged you as the protective type."

He shrugged. "I suppose I am somewhat with the others, particularly Izzie. I guess I'm lucky that she's is getting married this summer to her childhood sweetheart. I'd have put Walter through hell if they hadn't grown up together and he didn't a non-gentle bone in his body."

He put the photos back in his wallet and as he did he caught her furtive glance at the third photo in the little clear pocket. She didn't say anything and he temporized for a moment before finally he took it out. "And this is my daughter, Joanna McCoy."

It was a school photo: a young, dark-haired, dark-eyed girl with equine features looking into the camera with an open, daring grin. He held it out and she took it from him gingerly. "How old is she?"

"She's fourteen now but she'll have a birthday here in a few months."

"What's she like?"

"Lord only knows where she gets it from but she's sweet as can be. And with her mother's looks too, praise the Lord."

She gave the photo back delicately and he folded it away with the others. She took a sip of her beer and then said, "thank you for showing me that Dr. McCoy."

"Dr. McCoy is it now? It was Leonard a moment ago."

"Is that what you prefer?"

_Whatever makes you more comfortable_, he meant to say. Instead he said, "Yes... Outside of sickbay at least."

"Alright."

"If you're comfortable with that." He made himself add.

Instead of answering she said, "why is it that I sometimes hear you called Bones?"

"Oh that. It's an old joke. It was just something I said to Jim the first time I met him. He liked it and then it was what everyone at Star Fleet called me after that."

"You mean Captain Kirk?"

"Yes, right, Captain Kirk."

"I didn't know you two knew each other at Star Fleet."

"Boy how I wish we hadn't. We were roommates though."

"I didn't know that!"

He sighed. "Well I wouldn't dare show you the pictures to prove it. But it's true enough."

She laughed, a tinkling little clap of a sound that made him shiver. "Were you there for the famous Kobayashi Maru test then?"

He snorted. "All three of them. What a waste of time it was too. Everyone goes on and on about it now as if it were some foreshadowing to his tactical genius but honestly it was just a huge pain in the ass at the time. Jim was a fucking idiot back then, if you'll pardon my French. Green as a new tomato and oblivious as apple pie."

She put her hands over her mouth to cover a smile and he had to resist the urge to reach up and pull them away. "That's almost sacrilegious to say aboard the Enterprise you know?"

"Don't make it untrue though."

She chuckled and he watched her for a long moment. When she'd sat down she was stiff as a board, almost trembling with anticipation. Now she was leaning back in her chair, one leg tucked under the other and an elbow slung over the back of her chair. He didn't think she'd noticed herself do it but she'd swept the mass of her hair to one side, exposing a long streak of neck and her eyes were alight with humor. It took everything he had not to shudder at the beauty of her. Gamine was the only word for her, and had there ever been one more glorious?

She took another swig of her beer, finishing it. He smiled. "I'll have another one sent to you if you'd like but it's past time for me to send you back to your party. I've monopolized you for far too long."

She nodded and he stood, pulling out her chair for her. She rose and gave him a smile. "I enjoyed talking with you Leonard."

"The pleasure was all mine."

He read until she left and after she had he wished she'd stayed longer. Oh part of his mind had been distracted by her. Almost against his will he had tracked the people who had joined or left her party and he'd had to fight back the urge to tell the ensign to bring her water when she'd ordered a third beer. But in a larger way he found her smell comforting. He wished she'd come lay down closer to him, perhaps with her head in his lap where he could stroke her hair and breasts absentmindedly as he read. He wanted to know where she was and by her smell he knew that she was safe.

It took her three days to come back to the bar.

She wore a soft, under-stated, blue cotton dress that matched her eyes. It was a little low cut perhaps, but that was the least of her daring. She'd wrapped a little silvery scarf around her neck to the keep the smell in and that was probably enough to make sure that no one else noticed the difference, at least not consciously.

Phaser fire couldn't have made his head come up any faster. She hadn't worn it tonight. She'd come fresh from the shower with none of that normal stink on her. His eyes snapped to her like a tractor beam and he fought the urge to scent the air. She'd come in with those same girls again but she was looking at him, worrying one plump lip with her teeth.

He wanted to tell her that was his lip to bite. He wanted to kiss her gently and whisper how she had pleased him. He wanted to tell her to go to his quarters, hike that dress up over her hips and get down on her hands and knees and wait for him to come fuck her until she couldn't see straight.

Instead nodded once and pushed the chair across from him out with his foot. An invitation.

AN: So chapter 4! Hope you guys enjoyed it! As always, please drop me a line to let me know what you think! How was the chapter? How are Christine and Leonard as characters? How am I doing in terms of fulfilling all your A/B/O dreams and staying true to the characters you know and love? Want a little more smut in the next chapter?


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5-

Looking back on it, Leonard felt he should have seen it coming.

Regulus VII was a jungle planet—all swamps, towering trees and trailing, moss-coated vines. Leonard hated it almost before he'd fully rematerialized.

They had been sent to look into some technical issues that a damn on one of the great rivers of the planet was experiencing. The ruler of the planet, a Monarch named Titus Raa Maximus had asked the Enterprise for technical aid and Kirk had agreed. The planet had once been a former Earth colony, one of the first established. But it had broken political ties with earth during the Eugenics Wars and had not joined the Federation afterward. They were reluctant trading partners with the Federation (Regulus VII was nothing if not rich in natural resources but had failed to develop much after breaking ties with earth) and Jim was hoping that, with this act of good will, they might be more open to trading in the future.

He took a single step and sunk up to his knee in stagnant, muddy water. "Great."

Jim, who had materialized a few feet away on a mossy bank, gave him a single look a burst out laughing. "Oh watch your step there Bones."

"Watch your lip there Jim." He murmured under his breath so only the Captain could hear. Louder he said, "I don't even know why I'm on this god-cursed, soggy mess of a bitch of an away mission anyway."

"I told you Bones. One of the princesses is sick or something. They want a Star Fleet doctor to look at her."

"It's probably a head cold, at worst. And literally any one of my staff is far overqualified to do that."

"They wanted the chief medical officer."

"So slap a couple of stars on one of the fucking nurse's collars and _tell_ them that they're the chief medical officer already. I've got too much goddamn paperwork to be tromping all over kingdom come after some girl's case of the sniffles, princess or not."

"Lying on a diplomatic mission is not advisable Doctor. If the deception were discovered it could be interpreted as a grievous affront."

"I don't recall asking you, pointy-ears." He snapped at Spock (who he noticed had likewise landed on more solid ground than he had).

With some effort he pulled his foot from the vacuous mud at the bottom of the water and shook it a few times to free it of trailing leaves and excess water. It was nowhere near like presentable but he told himself he didn't give a rat's ass. If these idiots didn't want him trailing mud through their idiot palace then they shouldn't have built it in a goddamned swamp.

He looked up at the clouds. "It looks like it's going to storm. Of course it looks like it's going to storm," he mumbled under his breath.

"What was that doctor?"

"Nothing Nurse Chapel."

Perhaps that was contributing to his irritation as well. She had been on duty for away missions that shift and so was along with them. Even in the swamp he could smell the irritating stench of the damn soap and he swore he liked it less every time he smelled it. The fresh, clean smell of her beneath it was maddening.

The storm came more quickly than he'd expected too. It took him less than half an hour to find, treat and diagnose the princess (a cold just as he'd thought and a single hypospray to treat) but by that time water was already lashing the panes of her bedroom window. "Let me guess, the transporter is having trouble getting a lock on us," he'd sighed when he'd next seen Jim.

"The electric field from the lightning is making it too dangerous, Scotty says. Raa Maximus has agreed to give us quarters for the night and a feast this evening."

"Of course he has. He couldn't just send us our damn meals in our quarters and let us be like a civilized person. At least we left our dress uniforms up on the ship and can't possibly be expected to wear them."

Jim smiled. "Oh no, Scotty says he's willing to risk those in the transporter. We can always replicate new ones after all. Raa Maximus is expecting us promptly at four standard time in the throne room."

"They better not have forgotten how to make bourbon on this planet."

By four the storm had blown by and Leonard went so far as to try to pressure Jim into letting him transport back to the ship by claiming that he had "paperwork" to do. Jim had laughed. "Bones when do you not have paperwork? No, we said we would stay and we will. It would be rude not to."

He knew when she sat down at dinner that she'd showered before changing into her dress uniform. She was three seats away from him but the warm, light, honeyed scent of her made him relax slightly in his chair. Clearly she hadn't asked anyone to transport her down any of that Beta scent soap either. He'd forced himself not to let his head snap around when she'd come into the room but he gave her a polite smile and inclined his head in her direction.

He didn't much like the look of her dinner companions though. She had a female Beta to her right, but on the other was an Alpha, the son of an adviser to Raa Maximus. He was about her age with dark, jet hair, sharp blue eyes and a square jaw. Leonard wondered what it would be like to sock that jaw. It looked fairly solid but Leonard had a mean right hook and he was willing to test it out. Alphas that age were notoriously unpredictable and this one had a pungent, rutty smell that made Leonard's hands clench involuntarily.

Dinner was a tedious affair. He talked a little bit with the woman next to him, a Bonded Omega in her fifties with more jewelry than interesting things to say. He drank more than he should have and allowed himself to steal more glances at Christine that he'd intended. After dinner there was dancing but Leonard had had one drink too many and two drinks too few to have enthusiasm for it. He chatted with Jim for a while, complained mostly, and then, as quietly as possible, slipped out to go back to his chambers.

He was thinking about what he could have been doing instead of this on the Enterprise and so lost in thought was he that he didn't notice the first sounds of a faint scuffle when he first heard them. He wasn't sure what he was hearing first either. He picked up his pace to a jog as the sound grew louder.

"You fucking Omega bitch! I'll fuck the life out of you for that! I'll Bond you and fuck you until you die, whore!"

The shout rang down the hall and Leonard was already at a dead run. He was beginning to smell the conflict too and it made him nearly blind with rage. He could smell the Alpha rut hormones, enough to raise his hackles on their own, but beneath that was the smell of Christine's terror and that burned through his veins like wildfire across a prairie. It was a smell he would remember until the end of his days. Like gasoline and turpentine and shrieking burned metal it seemed to pain the inside of his mouth and throat. He wanted to wash the smell out with blood. He wanted to bite down on a throat and rip it out.

The adviser's son had her on the floor of the hallway on her knees. She was bent forward beneath him almost in a position for rut, though they were both clothed. He had her by the wrists, arms crossed in front of her and pulled back against him. His lower lip was torn almost away and the red smear of his blood on Christine's mouth explained that well enough. He could tell that she was trying to maneuver her weight backwards enough that she could roll the Alpha over her shoulder like they were taught to do in Star Fleet self defense. But the man had easily a hundred pounds on her and must have had some training as well. He'd angled her arms in such a away that she'd have to break them before she could get into any position to leverage his own weight against him. Her dress uniform was torn off one shoulder, ripped down over the torso almost to the waist and her eyes were wide in panic.

When he saw Leonard coming at him down the hall the Alpha stood, forcing Christine up too. Leonard half hoped the boy might try to reason with him but unfortunately he didn't seem so foolishly inclined. Instead he waited until he was in range and then pushed Christine at him. She stumbled forward and he caught her before she could trip but once she was on her feet he moved passed her, still advancing.

It had been a smart move to push Christine towards him. Not only had it got Leonard to lose his momentum catching her, now he had something to protect. He was limited to a frontal attack and couldn't move too much from side to side lest it expose Christine again.

For a moment the two of them sized each other up.

The other Alpha must not have liked what he saw. Either that or his lip was beginning to really hurt him. "I'm going to give you once chance to walk away from this," the other Alpha hissed at him. "Take the girl and go and I won't stop you. The stupid cunt won't let her fuck you, though that's all she's good for."

Leonard knew better than to reply. He tested the waters, prowling forward and back and left to right a little bit to see what the other man would do. Unfortunately he seemed to know what he was doing, matching Leonard step for step.

"Come on old man, what business is it of yours? She doesn't even belong to you. Her flesh is unclaimed." He sniffed the air. "Though she's not long before another heat."

He looked behind Leonard. "You should have come a week from now. You would have been begging for me to shove my cock into your..."

Leonard moved forward like a bolt of lightning, striking the man as hard as he could across the face with a vicious jab. The man saw it coming and dodged slightly, countering with a blow to Leonard's abdomen. And then they were grappling, both opponents raining blows down on each other in rapid succession. Though it felt like it lasted for an eternity Leonard knew it likely took less than a minute. Finally though he found his opening: the other Alpha leaned back to avoid his hook and he shoved the man back onto the hard marble floor.

Leonard landed on his chest, driving the air out of him and with his knees pinning one of the man's arms. It took him three brutal blows to the head before the Alpha lost the will to fight. His eyes glazed over and he stopped trying to hit Leonard with his free hand. His face was a bloody ruin, bruises and cuts swelling it into something almost unrecognizable.

And Leonard was still hitting him with everything that he had.

He became aware of something slowing his blows down. Christine had grabbed onto his arm and was hauling on him with everything she had, trying to stop or at least slow the savage beating. Sound seemed to rush back into the world. "Please... Leonard... Stop... Please... You're going to kill him if you don't stop now!... Please... He's given up," she sobbed

He snarled at her, whipping around and grabbing her by the upper arm. _How dare she beg for this man's life? This man who had tried to claim what was his? This man who had tried to Mark what belonged to him? How dare she beg on his behalf?_

Instinctively she went to her knees on the floor, tilting her head to expose her unmarked neck. "Leonard please... just please don't kill him."

Trembling, he got to his feet. He opened a com link to Captain Kirk. "McCoy to Kirk. Tell whichever one of those dignitaries had their son sit next to Nurse Chapel tonight to come pick him up from the hall outside our chambers and to make it quick if he likes the boy breathing. He needs medical attention right away but I won't treat him."

Kirk's voice came tight but controlled back. "Understood. Clarify."

"I found him trying to force himself on Nurse Chapel. I'm beaming both of us back to the Enterprise."

"Understood."

He tapped his com again. "McCoy to Enterprise transporter room. Lock onto Nurse Chapel and myself and beam directly to my quarters."

"Understood McCoy."

He expected her to stand when they materialized in his quarters. Either that or collapse into tears. Instead she remained perfectly as she was, locked in her submissive presentation position, staring up at him. Her chest was still heaving with panting gasps but suddenly everything seemed very quiet.

His fists were trembling. He intended to tell her to get up. He planned to let go of the arm he realized suddenly he was still holding. He meant to back up and give her some space. But she was kneeling in front of him so prettily, so easily and he couldn't seem to make himself move.

"Leonard please..." she whisper.

He could feel his heart beating so hard in his chest it was a wonder it didn't pound right out. His hands were beginning to tremble harder now and not from fear or rage. He was beginning to smell a new smell on her. Far from the acrid smell of her fear, it was a warm, familiar, fertile smell. She was getting wet.

He rubbed a hand over his face, fighting for control. _Of course she's getting wet,_ he tried to reason with himself, _she just watched me nearly beat another Alpha to death for trying to mount her. That's practically Omega porn for fuck's sake._

She spread her legs slightly, tilting her head up even more prettily. "Leonard... please."

With a roar he was on her. With one hand he tore the uniform fully off her, tossing it aside, with the other he brought her lips to his in a savage kiss. The other Alpha's blood on her lips was like nectar. "Fuck... Christine... Fuck."

He pushed her down onto the carpet, ripping her panties down to her ankles and thrust into her. The first push was like heaven. Jesus he'd forgotten how tight she was. He pounded into her with brutal strokes but it isn't enough. She was pushing back with everything she had too and the noise she was making... it was a broken little wail of pleasure, so high and keening it was almost a noise of pain. _This one is mine! This one refused the other, fought the other but me she welcomes! She wants only me in her! She wants only my cubs, my seed, my knot!_, he wanted to shout.

But instead it came out in an incoherent jumble.

His knot was beginning to swell and she was beginning to work her hips in a figure eight with each thrust to accommodate him. Each time he pulled out she writhed involuntarily and moaned, pushing back for more. It was making him wild. He didn't feel like Dr. Leonard McCoy, Chief Medical Officer of the Enterprise anymore. He wasn't even sure he could remember who that was.

When she presented for him, turning her head to show him her virgin neck he paused only to savor the moment. He snapped his hips into her brutally to remind her of his power. He bent down and took her flesh in his teeth. She was gasping so beautifully beneath him, her hips pushing back against his in a frantic, scrabbling bid to take his forceful thrusts.

"You are mine!" He snarled in her ear.

With a roar he bit down, thrusting in a final time.

Pleasure unlike anything flooded his senses. The hot warmth of her blood across his tongue seemed to plug into something in his brain light it up like a Christmas tree. The tension in her muscles, right down to her cunt, as she contracted in a mix of pleasure and pain was indescribable. They were both cumming but somehow even that wasn't the right word for it. When he'd rutted her before he'd felt he wanted more... needed more. This is the more he was looking for.

_Fuck. Bond. Claim. Mine_!

The feel of her beneath him, around him, was incredible. She seemed to suck him in farther with her tightness. But this was beyond a physical pleasure. She was _his_ now. She had offered him her submission, only him. She had accepted his Bite and now she would never be able to accept another.

"You belong to me. No other will take you from me. I will protect you. You are mine!"

"Yes Leonard... please... yes... oh Leonard..."

Somehow, once they were spent, he manged to get them both to bed. He was still worrying her neck, alternately sinking his teeth back in and licking it to clear it of blood and introduce his saliva, a natural antibiotic and coagulant, into the wound. Whenever he bit her she would come again, clenching down on his knot and making him spurt a little more. But other than that she was utterly collapsed, completely boneless beneath him.

She sobbed a little bit the second time he bit her but he paid her no mind. He knew he could wring more pleasure from her body and time and time again when he bit her she would come, sobbing and shaking. Her muscles were completely limp except for the one that clenched around him. She would be excruciatingly sore in the morning. But he wanted the wound as large and noticeable as possible.

It was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, raised and red against her neck. He fell asleep looking at it, her small, slender body pressed fully against his chest.

AN: What do you think? Drop me a line and let me know! I swear reviews are like writing fuel! What do you think of Leonard Bonding Christine? What do you think he'll think of it in the morning? What do you think Christine will make of it? Let me know!


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6-

He woke the next morning still buried inside of her and his mouth still smeared with her blood. He winced at the sight of her wound, already scabbed over but still inflamed and fresh. God above, he hadn't taken it easier on her.

Gingerly he slid out of her and off the bed. He turned on the water for a proper shower and let it run over him for a long moment. He'd made it hot enough to scald but he didn't turn it down. Shame seemed to rain down on him as well. How could he have let this happen? She was just a fucking child, his subordinate. And he'd Bonded her. She had so much life ahead of her, so much potential. She didn't deserve to have to live it half chained to a used-up, crotchety old man like him.

In the moment he had no doubt that she had wanted him to Bite her but how would she feel when she had woken up and found the consequences of her actions? _His_ actions, he reminded himself, he should have protected her better.

There might be no changing what he had done but he had to promise himself he would change what he could. In the next few months it would be hard, even impossible for the two of them to be apart. The new hormones of the bond would be fresh, implacable, almost irresistible. They might be able to be apart for hours at a time but separation for more than a day or two would be out of the question for at least a month.

After that though he knew that, if he could resist reopening the wound and restart the chemical cascade for both of them, the hormonal leash he would have on her would slacken slightly. It wasn't impossible that she could live independently from him, agonizing though that might be in the first few months of separation. _That will be her choice_, he swore, _you owe her that much at least you old coward_.

He went back out to his bedroom to find that she was awake, sitting on the side of the bed and looking around at the unfamiliar quarters. She looked up at him with an unfathomable expression, some part wariness, some part apprehension and something else that he couldn't quite place. The apprehension left him breathless with guilt. Wordlessly he drew her to her feet and led her to the bathroom.

He sat her on the toilet while he went to get his bandaging kit. He cleaned and patted the area dry and then inspected the wound. Against her creamy, pale skin the Mark stood out like a ruby flower, the outline of his teeth so perfect he felt he could have made a cast of them. It went deep but his saliva was a natural healing agent for just this purpose. Already it was beginning to close. He put some antiseptic on it just to be sure.

Normally he could have closed it in an instant with a tricorder, leaving not so much as a scar. But of course he never would with her Mark. This close to the rush of hormones released the last time he bit her it would be unbearable provocation to see her skin unblemished. He knew he would never be able to resist reopening the wound and he wanted to spare her that.

He doubted she'd ever had so much as a scrape that hadn't been treated by a tricorder. His own parents had been of the opinion that pain taught a child their limits and he had a variety of scars to prove how infrequently his mother had deemed his injury significant enough to allow his doctor father to treat. But her own skin was flawless-not so much as an acne scar to be seen—or at least had been until last night.

As he daubed on gel a tear ran down her cheek. She wiped it away quickly but another followed, and the another. He wiped away the third with a thumb. "What are these about?"

"...I'm... I'm so sorry. I'm just... I didn't mean to. I swear I didn't mean to... to..."

He cupped her chin and turned her face until she reluctantly met his gaze. "Didn't mean to what? Tell me."

"I didn't mean t-t-t-to do that. You know, to provoke you... God I'm so sorry!"

Guilt felt like a lead weight in his stomach and chest.

Somewhere, in some Star Fleet training on being a Commanding Officer he'd been told that these were exactly the kind of mistakes you weren't supposed to admit to a subordinate. It hadn't been said directly but it had been made clear to him that admitting that he felt remorse, that he was at fault, when it was a question of abuse of power charges was tantamount to career suicide. But he'd be dishonorably discharged before he'd let some Star Fleet trainer tell him what he was supposed to do in this situation.

"Oh honey..." He kissed her gently. "Oh honey, don't say that, don't even think that. That isn't what happened here. I'm your commanding officer and the Alpha. I should have known better than to Mark you. If anyone owes anyone an apology, I owe you one."

"But... but... but... I offered. I... I... I... made... made... made you..." Her voice was getting high and hysterical, the tears coming even faster now. "Jesus... you... you... I almost made you kill someone!"

He put his hand on her neck in a gentling position and she stopped crying almost immediately. This close he could see her pupils dilate slightly as the pressure of his hand hand caused a release of dopamine and serotonin into her brain. She gasped a few more times, sucking in breath and sobs before her breathing regained some steady rhythm and she began to take unsteady, calming breaths.

"You didn't do anything wrong honey."

"But I offered..." Her voice was shaky but calm.

"You have every right to offer. It's me who made the mistake. And I promise I will make it up to you."

"And you... you had to fight him... you almost killed..."

"You prevented me from killing him. You did a very brave thing."

She let out a little shaking gasp of a laugh. "God I'm so sorry..."

He stroked her neck until her shaking stopped. "You have nothing to be sorry for Christine. You did nothing wrong."

She bit her lip, brow wrinkling but accepted it when he tilted her head to the side to finish smearing the antiseptic onto her wound.

"How does it look?"

_Beautiful_. "You'll live I think."

He gave her one of his T-shirts to wear, an old beat-up thing from the University of Mississippi Rowing Team. It was comically big on her but she was tall enough that it hung indecently short. He didn't think his boxers would fit her though and her own panties were a sopping mess so he left it at that.

"You like eggs and bacon for breakfast?" He asked.

"Yes please."

"I'll cook for you sometime but today I think we'll just use the replicator."

For a while they ate in silence, too hungry to bother with anything but food but finally she had had her fill and sat back form the plate. She tucked one foot up into her chair against her chest and wrapped her arms around it like a girl. She picked up her coffee and blew on it to cool it.

"I think you will need to move your belongings into these quarters." He said finally, after considering his words for a long moment.

Her head jerked slightly as she focused on him, as if trying to discern something from his expression. Finally she said, "alright."

"Sooner I think would be better than later. I'll clear out some space in my closet and dresser for you today but within the week will be fine. You will have to sleep here of course."

"You aren't going to sickbay?"

"Neither of us should go anywhere today, unless I miss my guess. I'm going to go fill out some paperwork over this incident. I'll write up a document to let Star Fleet Command know of our new circumstances and another to the Captain. I would like it if I could give you another envelope to fill out your own account of the incident as well."

"I don't think I need one. I don't want to... I don't... I..."

"I prefer that you fill one out."

She hesitated. "Alright."

"Thank you."

She bit her lip. "What are the rules?"

"The rules to what?"

"To me... you know, living here."

"What do you mean?"

"Well do you want me to make you breakfast every morning or be home by a certain time?"

He put down his coffee very slowly. "Where ever did you get an idea like that?"

"Well I'm you're Omega now aren't I? I have to take care of you."

"I don't intend to shackle you to me like those Omegas in romance novels. You will need to defer to me, to defer to me as your Alpha that is, for the next few months. And I will have to take guardianship of you for that time. But I can promise you that I will never bite you again. In six months you could leave the Enterprise if you wanted to. You could go and be and do whatever it is you want. This is not the end of your life."  
She swallowed. "You won't bite me again?"

"Not ever. I promise."

She nodded. "Six months for the hormones from this bite to wear off?"

"Roughly. Could be a little more or less."

For a long moment she stared out as his living room, almost unseeing. Her expression was completely unreadable. She brought her fingers up to the bite, fingering the edge tenderly. He imagined for a moment that she looked almost... longing, but for what?

"I know it's a long time Christine but I promise I will try to make it as comfortable for you as I can."

She turned back to him and managed a smile, though the effort he could see it cost her felt like a hand in his chest, squeezing his heart. "Okay Leonard, I understand."

He wished they weren't having this conversation when she didn't have any panties on. It made it difficult for him to think like her Doctor, like her CO, the CMO of the ship. And he couldn't imagine that it was doing anything to boost her ability to advocate for herself. But there's was no way around it.

"In the next few months you are going to have to make some changes, we both are really. Has anyone ever explained to you the... realities of Bonding?"

"I mean I understand the chemistry from nursing school of course. And there was a book of children's stories at my house that had some in them... but no, not particularly. I guess... I mean I guess I just assumed that it wouldn't ever happen, since I was on suppressants and all."

He almost rolled his eyes. He'd suspected her parents were Betas and here was the proof. It was the classic Beta parent response to an Omega child: put her on suppressants, tell her not to make eyes at the Alphas at school and pretend like they never saw that first heat. Never mind explaining to her any of her biological urges or the side of her sexuality she might choose to explore later.

"Let's start with me. Alphas in a Bond are extraordinarily possessive and protective of the Omega. They expect to be included in all decisions that concern the Omega and even deferred to, perhaps against the Omega's wishes, particularly in matters they might considered safety related." For a moment he struggled to couch it in terms of himself. He mastered himself though, she deserved the truth. "I know that sometimes I might appear unreasonable from time to time in the coming months. I might become demanding, possessive... I might insist that you do things the way that I want them to be done, even if you disagree."

He swallowed. Her eyes were wide and he was struggling to keep his voice even, formal, disinterested. "And you will have to obey me Christine. A large part of you will _want_ to obey me. Omegas in a Bond experience a documented urge to do whatever it is they feel will make their Alpha happy, and draw the two of them closer together. You're going to want to cook me dinner, do the housework, and please me... in whatever way you can. You're going to feel vulnerable, even scared, when I'm not around as well."

She took a sip of her coffee and shuddered. "I... I mean... what do you think I should do?"

"For the next six months there is little we can do, according to the literature. Alphas and Omegas who are separated or in someway forced to act out of their dynamic once Bonded have been driven to suicide or worse in the first six months. I promise I will try to make this as easy for you as I can. But there will be patterns we can't avoid... You can't, for example, wear that Beta scent ever again around me. I won't permit it."

She nodded. "Can I still work?"

"Yes of course. I don't... I won't allow this to affect your career. I will have to declare it to Star Fleet headquarters and to Jim as well. Your paperwork will need to be change to reflect your new state, as will mine of course. I will also have you officially transferred to the charge of some other Commanding Officer but I'll have the records sealed and that could all be explained away by a... more traditional romantic attachment. If you do not wish to disclose the nature of our relationship I will of course respect that."

He wondered if she realized what a concession that was for him. It was going to be hard to let her return to work. If he was completely honest, though it was true he saw no appeal in keeping her locked up in some harem, there was some part of him that wanted to keep her trapped beneath him. Safe. She was safe when she was underneath him, in his bed. At least safe from everything that wasn't him. And the Alpha had never been the type for self-analysis. Even having her out of his site was going to be difficult. Going on away missions was bound to be torture.

If he'd insisted that she wear her Mark openly that would have provided him with some security that she would be seen by other Alphas as off the market. It would prevent them and even Betas from touching her without his permission. It would have let the world know that she was under his protection.

"But my mark... my scent... won't they know?"

"The uniform will cover the Mark. And you'll smell more like me now than you ever smelled like whatever Beta that soap was based off of. I doubt anyone will notice the change. Your old smell was aggressively indistinct. And if anyone notices they'll think it's from being around me so much, more likely than not."

"So what... we say we're dating now? And break up in six months?"

"If that's what you prefer, yes."

She bit her lip and then, finally, nodded.

"In a few days I'm scheduled to return to Earth for shore leave to attend Izzie's wedding... we won't be able to spend that many days apart though, not this soon." He hesitated. "I can arrange for you to have the days off or I can send a subspace telling Izzie something came up and I won't be able to attend."

She shook her head. "Oh no, I would feel horrible about that. You said you were meant to walk her down the isle right? Of course I will go with you."

He nodded. "Thank you Christine... I appreciate that you're willing to do this for me."

She looked puzzled. "Of course Leonard."

After breakfast she went to shower and he opened a com line to Jim.

The Captain looked tired and melancholy. He had the faint bags under his eyes that he always did after a sleepless night and his mouth was drawn in a line. "Is Nurse Chapel still in your quarters?"

It was a delicate way of asking several questions at once. "Yes. Is the Alpha still alive?"

"Yeah. You mess up his face pretty good but he will likely pull through."

"And diplomatic relations with the planet?"

"Those are still alive too. No one seems all too shocked about it in fact. They're more used to this sort of thing it would seem, since they haven't embraced suppressants like the Federation has. The boy's father is furious. But Raa Maximus seems more impressed than anything else. Apparently Federation Alphas have a reputation for being meek... he says it's good to see it's not entirely true."

"Have the boy's chart sent to me. I'll take a look at it." He might have offered to beam down but he knew the other Alpha would never accept him as a doctor, even if he could bring himself to treat him. "If I'm still on your medical staff, of course."

Jim rubbed a hand over his face. "Of course you're still on medical staff Bones. Don't make a fucking habit of this though."

"I think once was more than enough."

Jim hesitated. "Are the two of you... okay?"

He considered his words carefully. "Neither of us require medical attention. I can't speak for Nurse Chapel but I could use a stiff drink."

Jim laughed a little. "God above, me too. I'll send you the Alpha's medical chart as soon as possible. I think the gesture will be appreciated. Thanks Bones, I know that can't be an easy offer to make."

"It's the minimum I can do Jim." He hesitated for a moment. "You know you'll have to formally reprimand me."

The Captain bit his lip. "Bones... you were provoked. You were protecting another member of the crew, one you have a documented personal relationship with. I don't think it's really necessary for me to..."

"I'm going to ask Commander Spock to interview both of us and open an investigation."

"Bones no one will think...I mean it's not possible to... I mean I know Nurse Chapel is your subordinate but there are no specific..."

"Jim your Chief Medical Officer almost beat someone to death on a diplomatic mission last night. I Bonded one of my subordinates, a girl fifteen years my junior. Someone at Command is going to have some questions both of us will need to answer and it's well known that we're friends Jim. You can't brush this off. Lieutenant Spock can be trusted to be impartial but fair, you cannot."

Jim bit his lip. "It's your right I suppose. Though I don't see what purpose it will serve."

_Penance_, he thought, _plain and simple_. He'd never had much time for penance. He'd always felt that it was a weak impulse, reserved for people who preferred to suffer for their problems rather than fix them. But here was a problem without a solution. He would never be able to unmake the Bond. Like it or not, she was his forever.

The thought of that made him hard, despite of himself. The idea that he would be the first and last to ever knot her was primally satisfying. No one else would ever stretch and fill her like he had. And the undeniable fact that she had chosen him for that. The Omega part of her, that squirming, panting, heavenly thing, craved the Alpha in him. Christine Chapel might be too bright, too young and too optimistic for an old, sarcastic bastard like him. But the part of her nature that was separate from that, a more raw and visceral side of her, wanted him and only him to fuck and dominate her.

The investigation by Spock took two days after which the Vulcan science officer produced an enormous sealed file that included the transcripts of the interviews he'd collected from them, as well as Jim. The single page summary on the front recommended that he be warned for "the use of excessive force against a non-member of the federation in the execution of his duty." It was a much lighter reprimand then he had expected. Less than he might have got for a bar fight on shore leave.

Almost no mention was made of his Bonding Christine.

He'd asked Spock about the absence but the half-Vulcan had only replied, "as a Star Fleet investigator my purview extended only to ascertaining that the act was consensual on both sides. Any further investigation would have been inappropriate."

"What did you ask her about it?"

"The interview was conducted as part of a private, sealed investigation. I cannot reveal to you either the questions I asked or the answers I received."

He ground his teeth together. Knowing that the Vulcan was of course right did not lessen his desire to punch him square in the jaw. "I expected better from you Spock."

"I assure you Dr. McCoy, my investigation was thorough."

AN: Soooooo... the aftermath. What did you think? Did Bones and Christine live up to your expectations? What do you think will happen next? What do you think Christine thinks of all of this? Please drop me a line and let me know! I love, love, love to hear from you!


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7-

"Not that shirt."

Her brow furrowed. "You don't like it?"

"Not today."

Her hands moved to another one with a high collar but he shook his head and pointed instead to one with a low, scooped neck. If it hadn't been specifically designed to display her Bond mark, it did the job well enough.

She swallowed and tears welled in her eyes. "Leonard I don't..."

He carded his fingers through his hair, the other hand clenching and unclenching. "Don't make me insist honey."

"Leonard please..."

Feeling like the worst kind of bastard Bones pushed her down to the floor so she knelt in front of him. Out of habit and biology she tilted her head into the presentation pattern he had taught her. It was a position he knew would release all those Omega hormones she was primed up to produce—a cocktail of chemicals straight to her brain, all telling her to do what he said. After a long moment he pulled her to her feet and with a hard swallow she went to put on her bra and the scoop-necked shirt.

She came back to him once it was on and he wiped away the tears and kissed her deeply and gently. "There is my good, sweet girl."

"They're all going to know," she whispered against his shirt.

_They were going to know anyway_, he thought. Carol and Vicky were Alphas. They'd smell the Bond on her before she walked through the door. Like him they had a sharper than average sense of smell, even for Alphas, and unlike the crew of the Enterprise they were not expecting to smell him on her. Covering it up would do nothing but make them think she was ashamed of it, raising more questions instead of fewer.

Was that the real reason though? It had been excruciating for him to allow her to even leave his quarters with her Bond concealed. His hormone levels were sky high, even nearly a week later and her presence was like a throbbing wound in his consciousness. He was aware of her at all times. How her body was in relation to his, to other Alphas, to other Betas was something he couldn't stop himself from calculating and recalculating. The effort not to reach for her continuously was exhausting.

They packed in silence and he shouldered both their duffels. She wouldn't look at him as they boarded a transport and made their way to the transporter pad. "Ready?" The technician asked.

"Ready." He answered for both.

They rematerialized facing a painting of an frontier-era farmhouse fading into the forest and the words 'WELCOME TO MISSISSIPPI!' scrawled over it in letters made to look like a lasso. "Come on down and welcome to Mississippi." The new technician greeted them.

They walked down the steps and out through the gates, through security and into an open-air waiting room. "Len! Len!" A young woman was barreling down the length of the terminal towards them. With a little hopping skip of a jump she threw herself into his arms, almost knocking him over and he swung her around once before letting her down.

"Oh my lord you get uglier every time I see you! I'm so excited you're finally here! Took you long enough!" She shot a glance at Christine. "Who's the looker? My God, you said you were bringing a guest, you never said you were bringing a damn beauty queen. Yeesh, girl is going to start a brawl at Two Rails if she don't mind where she swings those hips! But come along quickly now. Tom is probably double parked and getting angrier with me by the second. Why me you ask? Lord only knows. I guess he thinks I'm in control of the damn transporters!" She laughed at her own joke and stuck out her hand to Christine. "Hi there I'm Vicky, Len's sister."

"Christine Chapel."

"And how exactly did Leonard manage to swindle a pretty, Yankee girl like you into coming to join us in these godforsaken Mississippi backwaters Christi..." She trailed off her question though. She'd come around to Christine's other side to shake her hand and as she tried to cast a sly glance at her and for the first time the Bite on Christine's neck. Her eyebrows shot up! "Oh shit! Leonard is that what I think it is?"

"Well it ain't face paint if that what you're asking.

Vicky laughed a little nervously. "Fuck. Mom is going to have a stroke when she sees this." She threw her head back and cackled at that. "I can't wait!"

"Oh Vick, just shut up will you. You're making Christine nervous."

She turned to Christine. "Oh don't worry about that. She's gonna like you just fine. She liked Helen after all and you seem like you can't possibly be one hundredth the cunt she was. But she might take a swing at Leonard when she sees that." She pointed at Christine's Bond Mark. "How old are you anyway?"

"I'm twenty-three."

Vicky's face split in a wide grin. "Oh hell yeah! Leonard you dirty old bastard! This weekend just got a whole fuck of a lot more interesting. And to think just yesterday I was praying for one of those idiot sisters of ours to announce another goddamn baby just so your mom would stop giving me those damn furtive-yet-hopeful looks already."

"Oh just tell mom to fuck off about that already."

"You tell mom to fuck off about that for all the good it will do any of us! You know she's got too much sense to listen to anyone she shares this much DNA with."

"Well if she won't listen to you she sure as shit won't listen to me. You were always far and away her favorite."

"Oh please! Everyone knows that in Monica McCoy's bookkeeping the winingest daughter is the pregnantest daughter and I'm still a complete goose egg on that front. I keep telling your damn brother-in-law to just go ahead and shove a baby right on up there but I think he's got wax in his ears or something. Ahhhh Tom's an idiot."

It was often hard for Alpha-Alpha couples to conceive. The hormone balance was hard to get right for an egg to take and many tried for years before they finally had a child. It was one of a number of reasons they were so rare.

"Anyway but it's great to have you here you Christine. Particularly if you're going to be such a darling element of chaos this weekend. Keep the surprises rolling I say, let's burn this mother down!"

Up ahead in the line of cars a door opened and a tall, blond man got out of the driver's side. "What the fuck Vicky! What did you go in there to rebuild the goddamn transporter pad?"

"Yeah Tom, it was a good thing I was there too or they never would have gotten through. All those mechanics standing around scratching their heads and they were like, "you, hey you! Girl over there standing around with her thumb up her butt, wanna take a crack at this?" and I was like "oh hell I ain't got nothing better to do." So I climbed on down in there and took one swing at the machine with a hammer and whatyaknow, presto! The damn thing turns on again. I was a goddamn hero Tom. You wanna kiss your wife and congratulate her?"

But Tom wasn't paying attention to her. In the hustle and bustle of the terminal Vicky hadn't been able to pick out Christine's scent right away. But out on the tarmac there were far fewer people and Tom has zeroed in on her with a laser precision. "Who is that?"

Leonard stepped subtly between them. "Christine Chapel," he answered for her.

Tom took a long look at the two of them then turned his attention to Leonard. He shook his brother-in-law warmly by the hand. "Welcome home Len! Jesus it's good to see you! God you don't know how it gets around here when I'm the only man in sight."

He threw their duffel into the back of the truck and Tom turned it on. The big, turbo engine roared to life beneath them and they were back off down familiar country roads. Vicky talked almost non-stop as they drove, pausing her constant stream of local news (who was pregnant, who was newly married, who had a baby and who's cow had gotten eaten by coyotes) only to harshly critique Tom's driving.

Though the backseat was spacious enough for the two of them Christine pressed against him, almost flush under his arm. He could tell that she was feeling uncertain, intimidated by Vicky and Tom and being in a new place. He didn't like the idea that he was taking advantage of her fear to break her bad mood but there was no doubt that she was becoming more pliable. She'd refused to look at him since he'd insisted that she wear the shirt. But now she slid her arms around his waist and pressed a soft, appeasing kiss to his neck, breathing his scent in deeply. He put his hand on her thigh, enjoying the feel of her smooth, warm flesh under his thumb as he caressed her.

"You're a good girl, honey." He told her under the stream of patter from the front seat.

She looked up at him sharply, almost as if she suspected him of making fun of her. But when she saw that he was serious she gave him a small smile. "You're not so bad yourself."

"I could do better."

"So could we all."

Soon enough they'd arrived though at Leonard's childhood home. Christine raised her eyebrows at him as they pulled into the long driveway lined with sugar maples and she caught her first sight of the Blue House, as the family called it. It was an enormous plantation-style mansion, complete with a stable, a wrap-around porch, french-style balconies and an enormous weeping willow down by the back pond with a swing beneath. In living memory it had never been Blue but it must have been once to get the name. For all of Leonard's life it had been painted a creamy white with green shutters and trimming.

"What were you expecting? A one room cabin?"

"I would have guessed that before this," she admitted.

Leonard didn't like to talk about the fact that his family came from money. He was sure Christine had never wanted for anything but he doubted that she was as wealthy as he was. If he'd wanted to he would never have had to work a day in his life, and for some reason that made him feel oddly ashamed. He had gone out and made something of himself, become a Doctor, joined Star Fleet, saw combat even, but he'd never _needed_ to. He could have lived a perfectly comfortable life without lifting a finger, or leaving Mississippi.

A girl who had been playing along the driveway was running up to greet them. "Uncle Len!" She jumped and he caught her, twirling her around before tossing her into the air and catching her again.

He brought her to his hip and grinned. "Susana I swear you get prettier every time I see you. Do you think someday I could be as pretty as you?"

She considered for a moment and then shook her head. "Probably not."

He laughed. "Come here and give me a kiss anyway."

She pressed a kiss to his cheek. "Did you bring me a present Uncle Len?"

"Might have. Have you been good enough to deserve one?"

She shrugged and started to answer when the screen door banged open and out came three boys of about seven to nine and a girl of about five. Leonard was swarmed. The boys wanted to know if he'd killed anyone. The girl wanted to know if he'd met any more princesses. He put Susana on his shoulders and waded through. "Come on you guys, time for me to go see your grandmother."

He reached back and offered Christine his hand which she took, allowing him to lead her up the stairs and into the house. "Who is that Uncle Len?" Susana asked.

"This is Christine, she's a friend of mine."

"Is she your girlfriend?" Susana's look was appraising.

"Yes she is."

"Does that mean that you'll never be married to Aunt Helen again?"

"There are a lot of reasons that I'll never be married to Aunt Helen again. Christine has got nothing to do with that though."

He had to duck down low to keep Susana from banging her head as he went through the last door to the kitchen, where he knew he would find his mother. It smelled like peach pie and dumplings and home when he stepped through.

"Is that my only son standing so tall in my doorway?"

"Hello ma." He came and kissed her on the cheek.

Monica McCoy was tall and willowy, only an inch or two shorter than her son. She had always been beautiful—fine, balanced features and the expressive, warm eyes that he had inherited—and none of that had diminished as she aged. She kissed Leonard back and gave him an appraising look. "You look better than usual, though tired." She glanced at Christine. "Is this the friend you told us you were bringing?"

"Yes. Mom, meet Christine Chapel. Christine, this is my mother, Monica McCoy."

Christine came forward with a flustered smile. "It's lovely to meet you Ms. McCoy. Thank you for inviting me into your lovely home."

Monica was staring at Christine's Mark however and she didn't look as though she'd heard a word the girl had said. Susana noticed it for the first time too. "Uncle Len, what happened to Christine's neck? Did she hurt herself?"

It was Monica who answered though. "Never you mind child. Kids, go run along and play outside. You've been cooped up here all day."

Len let her down and Susana dashed off to do as she was told, hot on the trail of the others. Monica came forward and wiped her fingers on her apron. She looked to Leonard for a nod of approval before she took Christine's chin in her fingers and tilted her head to the side to inspect the mark. "I see," she said finally. "I guess we won't be needing the guest bedroom after all." To Christine she added gently. "Welcome to the Blue House Christine, you can call me Monica if you would like."

"I'm very pleased to make your acquaintance Monica."

"Leonard why don't you go show Christine where you'll be spending the weekend and get her settled in. Lunch will be ready shortly and the girls are setting up the picnic table on the lawn. Do you like southern food Christine?"

"Oh yes Ms... I mean Monica."

"Well that's fine then."

He showed her upstairs to his old bedroom, an enormous room that, over the years had been reclaimed by his mothers tastes. There were still remnants of the teenage Leonard, a poster for a punk band in the closet and the name of an old girlfriend carved into the wood of the windowsill, but for the most part it looked like something right out of Country Homes.

"Somehow this wasn't what I was expecting."

"Hmmm? Oh yeah, ma redecorated a bit."

"No I mean this... this whole thing: You, home."

"What did you expect?"

"I'm not sure that's the right question. It's more what I didn't expect that surprised me."

"Fine, I'll bite. What didn't you expect?"

"Vicky. The children. Your mother. How you interact with them."

"What do you mean?"

"Well...I mean...I shouldn't have said anything... I just... I guess I didn't know that was possible is all." She stood, having finished her task, but she wouldn't meet his gaze. "I shouldn't have said anything. I just feel so ignorant when it comes to all this stuff, with secondary gender and all."

"Come here."

She came and stood by the bed. He caught her hand and jerked her down beside him, rolling her under him in a single, fluid motion. She gasped, squealed in surprise but allowed him to loom over her. He brushed the hair from her face and gazed down at her. "You can ask me anything you like."

She cupped his cheek with her hand, running her fingers over his stubble almost fondly. The weight of his body on hers was making her pupils dilate. She wasn't shaking anymore either from the stress of the new place and the new faces. She drew her fingers languidly over his lips. "Leonard, where is your father?"

"He died. About ten years ago."

"I didn't think it was possible for a Bonded Omega like your mother to outlive her Alpha... without suppressants I mean. "

"Sometimes it isn't. It's easier with children, particularly with my mother being as devoted to us as she is. I don't think it occurred to any of us that she would follow him, much as she loved him, and leave us." He hesitated, knowing he was on dangerous territory. "I think he was more in love with her than she was with him. She loved him to be sure but she never doted on him in the way he always did with her. He was her Alpha but she was his universe."

Her brow winkled. "I thought that Alphas were supposed to be the distant ones, and Omegas the more besotted ones."

"It isn't as simple as that. In heat there is no question who is in the dominant role. Outside of that though, it is less clear. Even between Alphas and Omegas there is a human component that has to be resolved. There is always someone who is more in love in any relationship or more dependent on the other in some way. It isn't necessarily the Alpha."

She thought about that for a moment—thought about them, he could tell. "But normally it is?"

He shrugged. "I have no idea honey. I really don't."

For some reason he felt like something strange and wriggling was trying to twist up in his chest just then, like a worm burrowing into his organs and viscera, as he lay looking down on her upturned face. It was an unpleasant if not unwelcome feeling. He disliked it and yet... and yet he couldn't quite bring himself to wish it would stop. The strangling, constricting feeling in his chest felt like it had been there all along and he had only just noticed it.

He wanted to press his face into her Mark and scent her, bite her again and then perhaps slump against her chest in exhaustion. It wasn't a specifically sexual feeling. He wasn't imaging rut, but he wanted the comfort of her blood across his tongue and a fresh wound. He felt tired more than anything else. If he bit her she would let him fall asleep like this, head pillowed on her breast. She frowned up at him. "Leonard, are you alright?"

He rolled off of her so they were side-by-side on their backs, staring up at the like ceiling like cliched star-gazing lovers. "Just suddenly a little sleepy. Maybe I could use a nap." His arm was still beneath her head and with that hand he stroked her hair gently, "that explains what you found strange about my mother. What about Vicky and the kids?"

"Just the way you are with them I suppose."

"What do you mean."

"It's hard to explain. You're just so free... so caring. I don't often see you like that, not on the Enterprise. I know that as CMO you have to act a certain way, I really do. It's just interesting to see you in moments where you're so... unguarded." She blushed deeply but persisted nonetheless. "It's nice... It's just not maybe a side I see a lot of in you, in the sickbay."

"As the CMO I have to..."

"I know, I know, you can't coddle us. It wasn't a critique, only an observation."

"Do I need to apologize for all the times I shouted at you Christine?"

She turned, folding her hands under her cheek to look at him. "No Leonard, of course not."

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye but the bright, clear blue eyes seemed open and sincere. "Thank you again for coming to the wedding. I know it wasn't really your choice but..."

She shook her head. "No, it was my choice. You offered to stay aboard the Enterprise, I told you I would come anyway."

_Your newly-minted Alpha was asking you for a favor honey, what did I think you would say?_

She seemed to know what he was thinking. A slight frown touched her lips. "I would have... that is to say, I didn't feel like..." She began but trailed off when a knock sounded on the door.

"Uhg love birds. Stop doing whatever gross Alpha-Omega shit you're doing in there and come down to lunch. Everyone's waiting for you and they definitely think you're fucking." Vicky's voice informed them through the door. "I think mom's head is going to explode if she tries any harder not to visualize it."

Leonard laughed and stood to open the door. "You've always thought that everyone else has your same puerile sensibilities but it just isn't true. You're imagining things."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Come on down to lunch Christine! Mom's corn bread is the best you'll ever have."

AN: What do you think will happen next at the wedding? What do you think of them as a couple now that they're bonded? Please leave me a comment and let me know what you think! I've been so busy recently... inspire/guilt me to get the next chapter out quickly please!


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